Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don’t know? Somehow I cannot hide Who I am, though I’ve tried. When will my reflection show, who I am, inside? Reflection by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel, from Mulan (1998) This is the most personal post I’ve written. Maybe the most […]
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WordPress Automatic Plugin and Theme Updates – Should You Use Them?
WordPress 5.5, released on August 11 2020, has introduced a new feature: enabling automatic plugin and theme updates. Automatic minor updates for WordPress Core (for example, from WordPress 5.4 to 5.4.1) have been around since WordPress 3.7, but having this option for plugins and themes is a new feature. Up until now, updating plugins and […]
How to Start a Blog: What the Experts Recommend
If you want to know how to start a blog, you’ll find no end of guides online showing you what to do. In general, they follow a pattern like this: Pick a niche Find a domain name Choose a blogging platform Select a web host Set up your blog Publish and promote posts Build an […]
How To Improve Your Social Media Image Accessibility (Updated)
This post was originally published on 31 January 2018 and was revised and updated on 4 June 2020. Everyone loves images on social media. And visual content is popular in terms of shares and engagement. But what about the accessibility of those images? A blind person cannot see an engaging photo or infographic. One way […]
An Accessible Word Document Checklist
While I focus on websites in my work, thanks to Deque University I’ve been learning about applying accessibility principles to other types of content. While many documents are distributed online as PDFs, making an accessible PDF is tricky because you need to have a copy of Adobe Acrobat to ensure it is marked up as […]
Genesis Review: Pros and Cons of the Popular WordPress Framework
It’s been a few years since I started using the Genesis Framework by StudioPress for building WordPress sites. But what’s good about Genesis? And should you use it? In this Genesis review, I’ll look at some of the pros — and cons — of using Genesis for building WordPress websites. Pros Genesis is popular According […]
WordCamp Glasgow 2020: A Stunning Debut
For me, WordCamp Glasgow 2020 kicked off with meeting Ahmed Khalifa on the train to Glasgow. I hadn’t seen him since Accessibility Scotland last year, so we had a good opportunity for a catch up on the journey. We made it to the venue and could immediately see why it had been described as arty! […]
Spotlight On Elementor Accessibility – Does It Build Accessible Pages?
Following on from my look at Beaver Builder accessibility, I thought it was time to turn my attention to another page builder, Elementor. With now over 4 million active installs on WordPress.org, and over 4,500 5-star reviews, Elementor is an incredibly popular and well-loved page builder. But can it build accessible websites? Elementor’s blog has […]
How To Add Closed Captioning To A Video – And What I Learned
Background: 2018, Glasgow Back in September 2018 I attended a WordPress Contributor Day in Glasgow. Contributor Days are events where WordPress users are invited to contribute to the project. A common misconception is that giving something to WordPress means writing code. But there are many other ways to make your mark in the WordPress project. […]
Focus On Beaver Builder Accessibility – Is the End Product Accessible?
Someone recently asked me about how accessible the Beaver Builder page builder is. Beaver Builder is a very popular page builder for WordPress that lets users drag and drop content – in the form of modules – to assemble their own sites. It’s aimed at both non-technical users and web professionals. Beaver Builder’s team have […]