rogergordon.net

About this site

Before I say anything, I want to thank you for visiting my site, and being interested enough to visit this page. There are zillions of web sites out there, many better, prettier and more interesting than this one, so it means something to have people give up their time to come here.

This is the fourth version of my personal Web Site since August 2006. You may wonder why I would change my personal site 4 times in 18 months. Well, I'm a web developer/designer, and I try to make sure that my site is a good reflection of both my design and coding capabilities. As I'm on the uphill portion of the proverbial learning curve, my site tends to fall behind quite quickly. I've put a lot of effort and thought into this version of the site and envision smaller, more frequent changes from now on, rather than the 'erase, try again' method I've used up until now. Making a web site takes more effort than I ever imagined, so I'm going to try and avoid doing it too often.

Purpose of this site.

As mentioned on the Home Page this site serves 3 purposes:

1. It's a way for me to put everything I know about web development into one site
2. It houses a portfolio of my work
3. It houses my two blogs.

Actually, come to think of it the site serves a fourth purpose, as well:

4. It's a way for me to teach people about the Internet

I've noticed a most computer literate people tend to make Web Sites that cater to people like them only. This is unfortunate as these people tend to have a lot of knowledge which could benefit others who aren't so technically able. I've decided to try and rectify this by making a web site that caters to technical and non-techinical people alike.

While I won't specifically be writing tutorials about the Internet and technical subjects, I'm going to try to keep the content and writing style as inclusive as possible and explain everything that I feel may need explaining. You'll notice little links in the form of question marks throughout this site. Wherever I've used a word or term that I think the average Mary or Joe may not be familiar with, I'll put a question mark to the right, linking to an explanation of that term in a site glossary.

Improvements since the last version

I've made a number of improvements to this site. Most of them deal with making the site easier to use and simpler. Below you'll find a few of them.

Accessibility

This version, and subsequent versions of my site will all have a heavy focus on being accessible. 'Accessible' in the context of web development means making a site so that everyone can access all the information on it. You may have encountered Web Sites in the past that greet you with a message like this: "Sorry, you need to use Internet Explorer Version 5 to use this site". That is not an accessible site, because people who don't use Internet Explorer, can't access any of the material. This web site will let anyone use it. It will look great on any browser that obeys web standards, and will still be usable on older browsers that don't.

Did you know that the Internet has make a huge difference to the lives of those with partial or total blindness? It may surprise you that blind people can use the Internet at all, but using a piece of software called a screen reader, a web page can be read to a person. However, the web page needs to be designed properly, and many web sites are designed in a way that prevents screen readers from reading the page properly. Sites that are badly designed are not accessible because blind people can't access the content properly. I've put a lot of effort into making sure all the content on this web site can be accessed by anyone, whether they can see or not.

One of the great things about the Internet is that anybody can share information with anyone else, no matter where they are. Although some countries have fast networks and their citizens can afford the latest technology, this is not the case in many countries. Should we prevent people in developing countries from accessing the Internet just because they don't have a super fast network and the latest technology? I'm sure you'll agree with me that we shouldn't. People who have slow connections often switch off images so that web pages load faster. However, many web sites have information contained in images that can't be found anywhere else on the site. This means that without the images, the web site cannot be used properly. I've built this site so that people can get all the information they need from this site, even if they have images switched off.

On the 'blog' section of my previous site, I had one or two embedded flash applications. Flash, in case you didn't know, is a technology for creating interesting interactive applications, video, or animations. Unfortunately, Flash is not very accessible, and screen readers cannot read the content of Flash applications at this point in time. Other methods for embedding applications that I used on my previous site are only slightly better than Flash. The applications that I've continued to use on this fourth version of my site use normal web code so that their information is now more accessible.

Usability

Closely tied with accessibility, the concept of usability means making something (in this case a Web Site) easy and intuitive to use. Below I'll detail some of the usability improvements this site has gained.

First off, I've given the site a more consistent look. My previous site had 5 sections, and each section looked completely different. While this was a good way for me to practice web design, I don't think it made the site very easy to use. This time round I've kept basically the same look and feel for all the pages, with colour differences to help differentiate each section of the site.

I've tried to make sure that the site makes sense to just about anyone who has ever used the internet before. I've made sure that most links are underlined, for instance, which is the standard way links on the Internet are displayed. I've tried to make sure that there are no links that don't go anywhere. If you're on the Home page, there isn't a 'home' link, because you're already there. I've added colourful highlights to all links so that it's easier to see when a link has been selected. This also helps people who can't use a keyboard to navigate a web page. Furthermore, I've tried to place things in a logical position. I've got the logo at the top of the page and the navigation menu just to the right of it, where most people would expect them.

A few convenience features have been added, too. The first is the introduction of 'Accesskeys'. Accesskeys tie certain links on a page to certain combinations of keys on a keyboard. They are useful for everybody using a keyboard. To jump to the 'blog' section of rogergordon.net, for instance, one simply needs to press the 'CONTROL' and 'B' keys on the keyboard, and to jump to the top of a page, one simply needs to press the 'CONTROL' and 'T' keys. I've also got a contact form at the end of every page, so that visitors don't have to load up a new page to get in contact with me.

Style

This is always debatable. Suffice to say I've toned down the design somewhat so that the content and not the design is the focus. I personally find that I get bored of very flashy/colourful designs quite quickly. As I hope to keep this current design for a while, I've chosen a somewhat less colourful style to accommodate all the great content that I'll hopefully be producing ;)

New Focus

I hope to produce content of a better quality on this site than my previous 3 versions. I'll try to produce a useful Chinese tutorial once a week and post only the most interesting/relevant material on my blog. I'll keep personal chit chat to a minimum and ensure that my work site is quick and easy to read and looks good.