Twinsparc

Accessibility problems = Liability problems

Nate — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 18:13:53 +0000

The San Francisco Gate reports that American retail giant Target is being sued (possibly class action) for having accessibility problems with Target.com: Blind student sues Target over firm’s Web site

From the article:

Advocates for the blind said the lawsuit is a shot across the bow for retailers, newspapers and other businesses that have Web sites the blind cannot use…

“What I hope is that Target and other online merchants will realize how important it is to reach 1.3 million people in this nation and the growing Baby Boomer population who will also be losing vision,” said Bruce Sexton Jr., 24, the blind third-year Cal student who filed the suit.

Proper accessibility is one of the core motivations for developing websites with web standards, and why we have been proud to do so for over four years now. Check out, for example, our work on the Turner Broadcasting website, which is coded from the ground up to be completely accessible.

Twinsparc Open House

Nate — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:47:26 +0000

Join us January 27th, 2006 from 6pm - 10pm for wine, beer, snacks & conversation. We will be showing off our new homey little office and our new little homie, Justin Goodlett. Justin is our first full time new hire.

Also on display will be some art from next door at New Street Gallery, including a piece by Albina Mattioli who’s videos, drawings, and paintings show opens the following day.

Email us at rsvp@twinsparc.com. Get directions from google right here.

Welcome Justin Goodlett

Nate — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:15:04 +0000

Please help us to welcome Justin Goodlett to the Twinsparc team. Justin is bringing a full plate of XHTML, CSS and Design skills to the table, and he’s already fully folded into our processes.

Does he look familiar? If you’re into web design, you have probably read one or more of his interviews with other designers.

Send Justin a welcome message at justin@twinsparc.com, and look for more good stuff from the three of us in ‘06.

Celebrity Say-So

Nate — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:24:32 +0000

It’s time to have a little fun with Say-So (read more about Say-So). We’ve asked some prominent names in web design and development circles to join us for a series of “Celebrity Say-So’s”. Each participant has agreed to create a Say-So post on a specific day over the next couple weeks. They will pose a question and everyone’s invited to respond and participate.

We hope you enjoy our little experiment here. Don’t take it too seriously, this is just for fun and the topics each author chooses is completely open to their whim.

Here’s the schedule, on each of these days we’ll add a direct link to the post:

Derek Powazek: December 2nd; Say-So Post: What the hell is a weblog? (Redux)
Mike Buzzard: December 5th; Say-So Post: Delivery is 99.9% of success
Stefan Kjartansson: December 6th; Say-So Post: Has Flash 8 lived up to the hype?
Dan Cederholm: December 7th; Say-So Post: Wine?
Heather Powazek Champ: December 8th; Say-So Post: Film or Digital?
Arturo Rodriguez: December 9th; Say-So Post: Where’d you come from?
Kevin Byrd: December 12th; Say-So Post: Band Name: The Forgotten Ponies OR Muff?
John Gruber: December 13; Say-So Post: Blue or Graphite?
Ethan Marcotte: December 14; Say-So Post: Best. Album. Ever.

Say-So.org Launched

Nate — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:20:00 +0000

Update:
Say-So is running smooth, we’ve updated to what is now version 1.4 of the system. This will be the last update about Say-So from this page, from here on out, find Say-So updates and info at the Say-So Blog.

Original Post:
We just launched a free service called Say-So.org, it’s a tool you can use to generate discussions on any topic, concern, question or idea you have. It shares similarities with a lot of different things, such as blogs, event organizing tools, product comparison tools, online polls, etc., but it’s much more free-form. The main focus of the tool (and reason for making it) is to allow anyone to gather feedback on an idea without needing a full fledged blog, and with more control over the “structure” of the responses. When you create a post, you can (optionally) assign up to three response types, for example “Pizza” or “Tacos”. All comments will then fall in either the Pizza or Tacos columns.

We also wanted to make it so that no usernames or passwords need to be remembered, Say-So creation and management happens via a “login-link” that we send via email.

Say-Sos and responses can also be kept completely anonymous, and can be made public or private, public ones can be browsed and searched from the home page, and private ones are only known to those specifically invited. After a Say-So is created, we offer five different ways to let folks know about it. We include help on various forms of emailing Say-So invites, code for posting on websites, and even a print-n-go version of the Say-So that can be pinned to an office or campus bulletin board - includes tear-off URL tabs!

We are excited about this new offering, and even more excited about the planned features to be released. This is something we are doing for fun in our spare time, however we have an organized development environment - so consider this version 1. Please let us know if you have thoughts, ideas, suggestions. If you like what you see, help us spread the word about Say-So.