post-next -Ted Drake’s sketchbook

Now that the duke is in the dumps, it’s time to continue cleaning up Congress. Please take a minute to make a donation to Francine Busby’s election. She will be replacing the disgraced Randy “duck” Cunningham in San Diego and needs your help today.

The Bush/Cheney Whitehouse admits responsibility for something!

Of course they first tried blaming the trial lawyer for being sneaky, but after days of deep soul searching, Cheney admits responsibility for shooting a trial lawyer! Naturally, he didn’t mention he was drunk off his ass on 40oz King Cobras and was joking with his fellow murder-buddies that lawyers don’t actually bleed when he pulled the trigger.
What next? Will they decide its actually better for the country to give seniors decent medical coverage instead of funding Haliburton for another three months?

Apparently, the lawyer was a canned hunting experience that Cheney is so fond of. The lawyer was intoxicated and then shoved released in front of the waiting “hunters” and their big shot guns.

The National Federation of the Blind has filed a suit against Target stores. The Target web site fails not only basic accessibility issues, i.e. alt attributes, but also uses outdated JavaScript navigation and form actions that make it impossible for people using assistive devices to download internet-exclusive coupons and access the online pharmacy.

The NFB actually gave Target 10 months to make adjustments to their site before filing the law suit. Unfortunately, big business seems to need these shots in the arm to move in the right direction.

History of lawsuit-activated advancements

The Australian Olympic site was sued for making ticket purchases impossible online to the blind. New York sued several travel sites for their inaccessible sites. Now Target is the new “target” and perhaps this will be the straw that breaks the hobbled camel’s back.

Just Do It

It all goes back to being more than a “web designer” and thinking about how your site is going to be used by the public. Are you doing something because it “looks cool”, “is quicker”, or “is how it’s always been done”? Or are you doing something because it adds intrinsic value, better performance, expands the audience, assists the user, makes it more intuitive, …

When I add something to a web page, whether it is a link, list, table, or paragraph, I think about how it is going to be used.

Should I put a title on the link? Is the text descriptive enough? Is the list or paragraph the most appropriate structural element? Should the table have a summary? Should I use headers=”" or will scope=”col” be enough?

About a year ago, my friend Brian and I challenged each other to come up with the worst t-shirt design for our mythical band, the Box Model Hack. Personally, I think I came up with the worst design. Brian, in the midst of all that was the wicked worn look designed a shirt that was too wearable to be considered bad.

But not mine… I found some photo of a guy dancing in a speedo and boots and new my muse was getting tickled. With Photoshop’s newly released ability to set text on a path, I was on my own path to ugly tshirt lovin’.

I even wore this lovely shirt to the @Media conference and witnessed dozens of people jealously admiring my lovely dancing hack guy. Yes, that’s me next to the lovely Molly. Notice her admiration for the lovely tshirt. Or is that fear in her eyes as she wonders who this maniac is with the camera phone.
In the spirit of the IE7 Beta 2 release, you can get your own version of this lovely shirt. So, head on over to my CafePress Box Model Hack store and stock up on the goodies before Microsoft actually fixes the box model problem… Now that’s funny.