Mar 23, 2018Diving headfirst into accessibilityAnd observations from our workshop with students from the Governor Morehead School — With my work as principal web developer and UX designer on the Red Hat Customer Portal, I want to be confident that we are moving in a positive direction toward inclusivity across our web applications. I am passionate about accessibility and I’m continually learning more about it. …Accessibility13 min readAccessibility13 min read
Aug 21, 2017Responsive, Pure CSS Off-Canvas Hamburger MenuBuilding a progressively enhanced mobile menu that works without JavaScript — Last updated on January 21, 2019. Pure CSS off-canvas hamburger menus aren’t a recent discovery. After all, Chris Coyier wrote about this technique back in November of 2012. If this is an old trick for you, then hang with me for a bit. I’ve improved upon Chris’s example, and would…Web Development8 min readWeb Development8 min read
Aug 4, 2017Don’t use “click here”And other common hyperlink mistakes — I’m not the only one to write about this. In fact, you can easily search “should I use click here for links” in Google and pretty much find all the information you need to convince yourself it’s a bad practice. “Click here” has gone viral If there’s so much information out there, why is it…SEO6 min readSEO6 min read
Feb 9, 2017A better alternative to data-target attributesAnd why using data attributes for JavaScript state setting and styling isn’t always the right choice. — If you’re a web developer, chances are you’ve seen or used a data-target attribute like this to control a widget in JavaScript: In the above example, data-target specifies which element is the target to be controlled by the button — targeting the <div> with an…Web Development3 min readWeb Development3 min read
Nov 14, 2016Let’s bring <table> to the table, again.Hopefully, by now, we should all agree that you should never use tables for layout in HTML, and that tables are not evil when used appropriately. In other words, we should agree that tables are strictly intended for tabular data. However, there are instances where tables of tabular data can…Tables11 min readTables11 min read
Sep 9, 2016Use ARIA Attributes for JavaScript State Setting & StylingIn other words, making lots of friends with one gift — Picture this: you’re a web developer tasked with writing a simple JavaScript component that will expand and collapse a panel of content at the click of a button. We’ve all seen these before, right? However, this time you decide to break away from the convention of adding classes like “expanded”…Accessibility2 min readAccessibility2 min read
Aug 5, 2016Scratch-made SVG Donut & Pie Charts in HTML5Or how to write all that gobbledygook code yourself — A web developer’s kitchen is somewhat similar to a home cook’s. A developer has access to a variety of ready-made code libraries that will kickstart her web application in much the same way a home cook can utilize pre-made products to make preparing his meal more efficient. In both cases…SVG11 min readSVG11 min read
