Hello Friend!
What's Going On?
As busy as I have been recently now that I am four months into my job at Knowbility, I'm starting to get to this newsletter a bit and streamlining it. Also, the W3C work has been a lot as well, I may have to cut back on groups because my work load is heavy and I rarely have time for personal projects and self-care these days.
I am moving to Phoenix, AZ at the end of this month. It is happening! No snow seems like heaven to me. As of this newsletter, it's now 28 days before I head west.
A few things to get to, so let's get into it!
🔊 Twitch. I am going to be streaming again. At some point after the move. Look for September. I have forgotten everything, I have to go back and learn it all over again.
📝 My Smashing Magazine article made it finally! I am proud of this one and it picked up a lot of press and talk, so that was great! I had a great time with the editing process.
🗣 August will bring me on a stream which is a surprise so stay tuned to Twitter for that. I won't say anything more.
I have released podcast episode seven and eight! Episode seven with Preston So and we talked about his new book from A Book Apart called, Voice Content and Usability . It is a great read, and the interview was terrific and Preston is as well. Episode eight was with Rahat Chowdhury and we talked about mental health, his projects he has going on for a mental health app called Whimser and some developer stuff as well. Another great episode with a terrific guest.
You can watch the episodes here: 📺 Preston So and Rahat Chowdhury
or you can listen to the audio version on your podcast platform of choice.
Episode nine will be coming out soon! That wa a great epsiode to record!
Spicy Link of the Month 🌶
Overlays are a broad term for technologies that aim to improve the accessibility of a website. They apply third-party source code (typically JavaScript) to make improvements to the front-end code of the website.
With all the turmoil in the month of July (and even well before that) with AccessiBe and their inaccessible product and their even worse band of executives and supporters and their fear-based attacks on those in the accessibility community.
A11y Tip of the Month ♿️
Accessibility Overlays: DON'T USE THEM! Just don't. They don't work. One line of JavaScript will make your website 100% accessible is about as realistic as me putting a NASA patch on my jacket and calling myself an astronaut. They don't work. They never have, they don't, and they never will work.
I'm going to stop the Recipe of the Month 🦞 section and keep these newsletters as short as I can. I don't get any responses (that I know of) that people want more or less, but I think it's time to shut the door on that like I did the zines. Time is limited until I can reorganize my calendar at the end of this year.
I am still looking for a sponsor or sponsors for the podcast to help defray expenses for transcript/captioning software (Descript) and getting a new domain and website up! Please send anyone or company my way, or if you run a company, contact me!
This newsletter gets sent out on the first of every month. Tell your friends and tell your followers!
Until then, you can find the links below where you can find me and ask any questions you may have.
That's it for this month! Keep on being amazing and building great things!
Keep on, keepin’ on!!
🦞 — Todd