I wrote an article for DesignFestival.com. Popular Mistakes in Universal Web Design. It was later tweeted by Smashing Magazine (who has nearly half a million followers) which made me quite happy.

My brother visited me here in Northern California, and we took 3 jam-packed day trips to Monterey area, Napa valley, and Highway 1 to San Francisco. My cousin Italo was also in the area and we took a visit at Villa Montalvo in nearby Saratoga.

On my Web Axe podcast and blog, I wrote an analysis of (lack of) keyboard accessibility on Google Plus. I published, although a bit late, Podcast 92 “Frustrated”. I wrote a few other blogs including a listing of web accessibility events for the second half of 2011.

Lastly, and most recently, my wife and I saw Sade in concert (you know, “Smooth Operator”) at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Great show, but not-so-good concert pictures (but the short video clip is pretty cool).

In January, I finally published my big article 25 Ways To Make Your Website Accessible. The idea was to get it on a major online magazine, but red tape got in the way, and I hate red tape. Anyway, the article got great response from the community on Twitter.

In February, The American Foundation of the Blind announced the winners of their AFB 2011 Access Awards, and my web application Accessible Twitter was a recipient! I’ll be traveling to downtown Seattle next week to attend the ceremony at the 2011 Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute (JLTLI) conference. Weird part of this is that Disney Parks & Resorts also won the award, but at the same time, Disney was sued for inaccessible websites!

The week after Seattle, I’ll be traveling back to San Diego for the CSUN conference (Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference). I published a Web Axe podcast which discusses the conference, CSUN 2011 Preview. I’m not speaking at the conference as I did last year, but I will be judging a contest!

The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others.

I agree with the many who say that that HTML5 is just HTML5 (the markup) and shouldn’t be conglomerated together with other standards such as CSS; mixing them causes confusion. Then, the W3C responded with this statement The HTML5 Logo Conversation. Whether you agree or disagree, or like or dislike the new logo and W3C’s angle, there sure has been a lot of fun (and great coding!) as a result.

Fun Stuff

• HTML5 Pants
• Flash animated HTML5 logo
• Zillions Of Hilarious Parodies
• W3C HTML5 Spinning Logo (Flick it!)
• Official W3C HTML5 T-Shirt
• Official HTML5 Logo Is Out: Get Your Badge! from WebResourcesDepot
• Pure CSS HTML5 Logo – By Darcy Clarke

Commentary

• Two cheers for the W3C’s HTML5 logo from the HTML5 Doctor.
• New W3C HTML5 Logo: Looks Ok But Inconsistent, Fire W3C Communications Person Who Led Messaging by Tantek Celik.
• Jeremy Keith Adactio Badge of shame.
• HTML5 and the New W3C-Endorsed Logo by SitePoint.
• Bonus: HTML5 is dead. Long live HTML. by @ChipCullen

What do you think of the new logo and the W3C’s line of thought?

<a href="#">Click here <span style="position: absolute; left=-999em;">for more information on bat species</span></a>

You should never use “click here”! This is a total accessibility fail!

I’ve been waiting on publication of a big article for 6 months now, and this is part of the hold up? Ugh, so frustrating!

Podcast #86: EDUCAUSE Review, AHG Preview, HTML5 Audio with Terrill Thompson (Nov 2)
Dennis speaks with Terrill Thompson about a variety of topics including a summary of the EDUCAUSE conference; a preview of the Accessing Higher Ground (AHG) conference; community efforts to fix the web; HTML5 audio, video, and controls; and captioning.

AccessU West Keynote by Web Axe Host (Nov 5)
About a conference in January in San Jose, California, for which I present my first keynote address!

Feedback on A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Web Accessibility (Nov 6)
Some corrections and clarification on a popular article.

HTML5 Sanity Check (Nov 21)
A warning about the readiness of HTML5 pertaining to web accessibility, and some great articles and resources too!

Response to Twitter Keyboard Shortcuts (Nov 23)
Comments on the irony of keyboard shortcuts on Twitter.com when the site isn’t keyboard accessible.

November Link Roundup (Nov 30)
Every month this year I’ve been publishing a list of links going around Twitter which pertain to web accessibility.

1. Introducing HTML5 (Peachpit) by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp
2. HTML5 for Web Designers (A Book Apart) by Jeremy Keith
3. HTML5: Up and Running (O’Reilly) by Mark Pilgrim
4. Pro HTML5 Programming: Powerful APIs for Richer Internet Application Development (APress)
5. HTML5: Designing Rich Internet Applications by Matthew David (Visualizing the Web)
6. Beginning HTML5 and CSS3: Next Generation Web Standards (APress) by Christopher Murphy

Bonus! Video tutorial: HTML5 Now: A Step-by-Step Video Tutorial for Getting Started Today (Voices That Matter) by Tantek Çelik

1. Tooltip for user stats

AT provides a tooltip (title attribute) over the author’s name on every tweet which provides the full user name if available, number of followers and number of friends. In HootSuite, to get this info, you must open the user modal window and wait for an overly abundant amount of information to load.

2. Inline image previews

Accessible Twitter provides icon-sized image previews in tweets with link to TwitPic and YFrog images. And support for more providers is planned. No support in HootSuite.

3. Pagination of user timeline

Unless you create a column for a particular user, HootSuite limits viewing of a user’s tweets to 10. Accessible Twitter provides pagination on a user timeline page, so you can view many more.

4. Viewing Trends

Viewing Twitter trends in AT is easy, click Trends in the main menu. AT provides weekly, daily, and current trends list. In HootSuite only the current trends are provided, and it’s opening it is very “un-usable”; it’s a dropdown when entering the search field!

5. View popular Links

In AT, simply click the (Popular) Links item in the main menu to view the most popular links in the Twittersphere. No support in HootSuite.

6. Quick Go To User

AT provides a text input on every page where you may enter a username and jump to that user’s profile or timeline page. No similar feature in HootSuite.

7. Faster to View User Timeline

AT provides a “TL” icon in each tweet so that the user may jump to the author’s timeline with one click. In HootSuite, You must open the user details dialog, then navigate to the Timeline tab.

8. Delete your tweet in all timelines

AT provides a link to delete your tweet on all pages in which your tweet may appear. In HootSuite, the delete option is only available in your Sent timeline.

9. Links to followers, following

The user details page contains links to followers and those following; HootSuite’s user details page doesn’t.

10. No broken account icons

In HootSuite, the icons for users many times are broken; the images do not load correctly. This issue occurs on different browsers and has been for many months now.

11. No horizontal formatting issues

When a modal window is opened in HootSuite from the right column, it throws off the horizontal display. (It can be fixed by clicking an obscure button on the bottom left.)

12. Don’t lost your place in timeline due to updates

AT never messes with your page content without you approving. In HootSuite, how irritating: when I scroll down to read tweets, and there’s an auto-update, I lose my place. And then it’s difficult to relocate the tweet I was reading when interrupted.