Carie Fisher

Now that the winter holidays are over and the snow is beginning to melt, we find ourselves at the beginning of a new season. No, not spring, but tech conference season. By this time of the year, I have usually submitted a few talks to a handful of conferences, patiently waiting to hear back on decisions so I can try to figure out how I can magically stretch my limited budget.

In my previous blog post, I talked about six design alternatives to avoid slideshows. The response to that blog post was great - who knew there were so many kindred spirits who dislike slideshows? From the feedback I received, the number one question was why are slideshows so bad in the first place? Hopefully this companion blog post will give you that deeper understanding of some reasons not to use a slideshow and maybe help convince your next client that slideshows are a thing of the past.

Slideshows, sliders, carousels: no matter what you call them, in terms of web design they are just evil. Do a quick Google search and you will see that most frontend developers and UX/UI designers can agree on this point and have been talking about it for years. But why do we still constantly see them? Part of the issue is that slideshows, especially in the hero region, are so ubiquitous that many clients see them as necessary and keep asking for them. They have essentially become a “home page… Show more

Slideshows, sliders, carousels: no matter what you call them, in terms of web design they are just evil. Do a quick Google search and you will see that most frontend developers and UX/UI designers can agree on this point and have been talking about it for years. But why do we still constantly see them? Part of the issue is that slideshows, especially in the hero region, are so ubiquitous that many clients see them as necessary and keep asking for them. They have essentially become a “home page standard.” A design element that is so prevalent can’t be all that bad, right? Wrong. The next time a client asks for a slideshow, resist the temptation to go off on why they will kill a website, and propose one of these alternatives. Show less

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and website accessibility are not the same thing. There are different rules to follow, different audiences to target, and different ways to test the effectiveness of each.

Optimizing your website for search engine bots does not mean it will be automagically accessible to real people too. Some SEO practices may even hurt your website’s accessibility.

However it is not all bad news, there are some areas where the two worlds overlap. If you have a… Show more

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and website accessibility are not the same thing. There are different rules to follow, different audiences to target, and different ways to test the effectiveness of each.

Optimizing your website for search engine bots does not mean it will be automagically accessible to real people too. Some SEO practices may even hurt your website’s accessibility.

However it is not all bad news, there are some areas where the two worlds overlap. If you have a limited budget and/or timeframe for a project, targeting these six areas may simultaneously boost both SEO and website accessibility. Show less

Website accessibility is a buzzword these days, but not everyone has a firm grasp on what that term means. So what is website accessibility? Who is in need of accessible websites? And why should you as a website designer or developer even care? As a bonus, included are some suggested steps and resources to get you started down the right path when it comes to website accessibility.

Ever wonder how websites go from initial design to code? What steps and tools are involved? What are the common pitfalls and how can you avoid them? In this blog post, I will recap the process our designers and front-end developers take to when creating a new website design for our clients. Hopefully, this will give you a little more insight into Mediacurrent’s methodology and in turn help you develop a more robust workflow of your own.

Happy Friday everybody! Episode 30 was recorded at Drupalcon Baltimore, but I didn't notice that the mic setting was still set for our lapel mic, so we had to re-do the audio. That being said, Carie Fisher and Chris Doherty are going show us 5 Steps to Get Your Design from Paper to Style Guide (While Remaining Friends). It was their presentation session at Drupalcon!

We wear a lot of hats as front-end developers. Depending on the client or company you work for, you may be the designer, UX/UI specialist, site-builder, QA tester, and developer all rolled into one. How can we possibly add the accessibility hat on top of all that...especially when a project does not have a lot of time or budget to include that piece?

I recently had the opportunity to give a beginners talk about website accessibility at MidCamp 2016 where I covered some easy ways to promote accessibility in terms of structure, color and contrast, fonts, links, and media. It was a wonderful experience for me and I was grateful for the audience who had some nice feedback and interesting questions. Here are the highlights of the presentation, plus the audio recording and links to related resources.

This week, Senior Front End Developer Carie Fisher highlights 5 Problem Areas in Accessibility and provides some great examples of good and bad website accessibility.
Watch the video below to learn about Structure, Color & Contrast, Fonts, Links and Media.