
<p>The more I hear about AI learning to write essays to <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/11/08/ai-da-robot-painting-sells-one-million-sothebys">make art to sell at fancy auction houses</a>, the more I want to know why AI isn’t washing my dishes are doing my laundry or changing my oil. We don’t need AI to make art. If we need it at all (highly debatable) we need it to do the mundane things so we can all spent our time making the art.</p>



<p>AI rapidly becoming mainstream, and in many cases the perception is that it’s innocuous. But the reality is very different, and here are some concrete reasons we will not be using AI to create brands or copy or art or websites. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1. AI is being used to enact genocide in Palestine</h2>



<p>We might as well start with the biggie, because the rest hardly matter in the face of this one. AI is being used by global powers to commit genocide agains the Palestinian people. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/21/google-ai-israel-war-hamas-attack-gaza/">Google and Amazon have provided AI tools to the Israeli military</a>. These tools are used to analyze data and select military target. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes">The Israeli Defence Force also developed its own AI tools to called Lavender,</a> used to select targets and which users have reported had built-in allowances for civilian casualties. A lot of things originally developed for the military have become useful mainstream products—from duct tape and micro waves to the internet itself—but AI’s origins as a tool for mass death should be reason enough to keep it out of the mainstream (or at least our own personal Flegg Creative mainstream).</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2. AI is contributing to climate change</h2>



<p>There are all sorts of wild claims about this one, like ChatGPT incinerates a bunny every time someone asks it to write an email, but here’s the thing: even if we disregard the brashest claims, the most dramatic, the most difficult to quantify or verify, it’s still bad. While it might sound counterintuitive to talk about the internet—this magical, intangible, invisible-but-everywhere global cloud—burning fossils fuels, but the reality is that the magical cloud relies on <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117">real, physical servers and data centres</a> to store and transmit the information available at all of our fingertips. The more we use the internet, and more specifically the more we create data, the greater the need for huge data centres housing tens of thousands of servers all requiring power 24/7/365. In addition to the power to keep them running, these servers also require water to cool them down. A huge amount of our electricity comes from fossil fuels, hence the use of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/business/dealbook/ai-power-energy-climate.html">AI resulting directly in increased carbon emissions.</a></p>



<p>Training AI models, especially complex language model, is extremely energy intensive, and while that level of consumption doesn’t last forever (at least theoretically) the continuous adaptation of these tools means they will continue learning and changing and therefore using huge amounts of power and water well into the future. So when OpenAI CEO <a href="https://futurism.com/altman-please-thanks-chatgpt">Sam Altman says that thanking ChatGPT costs him millions of dollars</a>, he is literally referring to the cost of energy and water. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3. AI is trained on stolen art</h2>



<p>Remember when we were teenagers and threatened with imprisonment for downloading Avril Lavigne songs on Limewire? Or when we were in university and had the fear of god put in us about plagiarism, convinced that a misplaced colon in a footnote would lead to a failing grade, expulsion and (probably) imprisonment? Well, no more.&nbsp;Now AI gets free access to all kinds of artwork thanks to datasets created to teach AI to write its own academic essays, craft novels and screenplays and create digital art.<br><br>A <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-authors-books3-ai-dataset-1.7050243">CBC News investigation </a>discovered that a dataset containing 2500 copyrighted works by 1200 Canadian writers had been used to train various AI platforms, including OpenAI and ChatGPT. This Los Angeles Times piece <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-06-18/artificial-intelligence-openai-media-manager-apple">links to a host of other lawsuits launched</a> by writers, visual artists, actors and audio creators against a variety of generative AI companies for the theft of their work. Artists (if they’re lucky) earn money through royalties, licensing fees and commissions, and the use of this copyrighted material without consent or payment is just theft. The fact that it’s multi-billion-dollar companies doing the stealing just adds insult to injury.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">4. AI is unreliable</h2>



<p>Because AI, especially the bit that now appear at the top of every Google search, pulls from all over the internet, and the internet is full of inaccuracies and omissions and downright fabrications, those summaries are often full of inaccuracies, omissions and fabrications. Janel Comeau, writer for noted Canadian comedy news site<a href="https://www.thebeaverton.com/"> The Beaverton</a>, did some internet searching and discovered that both Meta and Google AI engines think Cape Breton is in its own time zone, 12 minutes ahead of the rest of Nova Scotia, citing a Beaverton article she wrote. </p>



<p>A friend recently shared <a href="https://lnkd.in/gyHMznZc">this completely bonkers story</a> that illustrates how, apparently, we’ve done a better job teaching AI to lie to our faces than we have teaching it basic reading comprehension. Writer Amanda Guinzburg asked ChatGPT to help here choose a collection of her essays to include with a query letter. The bot goes on to completely make up the summaries citing topics and even wording that appears nowhere in any of Guinzburg’s work, admit that it lied, lie again and then finally admit that the format of some of the essays is not actually legible to it at all. Give it a read. It’s truly wild. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5. We believe in people</h2>



<p>When it comes to our own work, the human part of human-centred design is pretty key to the whole thing. Call us old-fashioned, or corny or cringe (one of us is cool and the other is pretty cringe, I’ll leave it to you to figure out who is who) but we believe that real people create beautiful, unique, useful, unexpected things, and that is the whole joy of it. As challenging as working with humans can be, the magic happens at the intersection of expertise and experience that comes when clients share their vision with us and we apply our skills in service of bringing that vision to life.</p>



<p>We want to make meaningful art and writing, and create designs that convey real messages and connect with real people. And we want to support you to do the same. AI only undermines those goals, and so this is our promise that working with us means working with people, plain and simple, in all our imperfect glory.</p>



<p></p>


5 Reasons to Choose Human-Centred Design over AI


<p>We’re very big on training our clients thoroughly so they feel confident put their website to work, making updates and changes when they need to and just generally taking advantage of all the great options we provide. </p>



<p>There are lots of things we do at both the code and design levels as web designers, but there are also plenty of things you can do as the proud owner of a website. And as we&#8217;ve <a href="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/2025/05/13/the-accessibility-process-has-two-sides-your-audience-and-your-team/" data-type="post" data-id="252" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previously discussed</a>, we want to encourage you to make updates and add content to your website whenever you need to. So we&#8217;ve put together this guide to help you keep your website beautiful and accessible while you take advantage of all the great options we&#8217;ve built for you.</p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Colour contrast and background images</li>
</ol>



<p></p>



<p></p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Contrast</li>



<li>Type size</li>



<li>Alt text</li>



<li>Buttons vs links</li>



<li>Accessibility overlay plugins</li>
</ol>



<p></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1. Contrast</h2>



<p>This is one of the most important parts of visual accessibility for your website, and it&#8217;s one of the simplest to check and adjust. We use a tool called <a href="https://contrastchecker.com/" data-type="link" data-id="https://contrastchecker.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ContrastChecker.com</a>, and while it may not look super slick, it&#8217;s an invaluable resource, and YOU can use it too. If at some point you want change up a background colour (sticking to you brand palette of course. For instance we often use dark text on a cream background, but occasionally light to use cream type on our brand green to mix it up) use Contrast Checker to make sure you&#8217;re selecting a text colour that will show up well on that background. </p>



<p>Before you even start entering your new content or making your change, just enter the hex code for your foreground colour (text) and background colour, and it&#8217;ll tell you whether the combo passes web accessibility standards. It&#8217;s a great habit to get into.</p>



<p>Thinking about contrast and general readability of text also applies when you&#8217;re working with background images. Text on images can be a very effectively element on our site, think the hero section at the top of many homepages. One of the changes you might want to make in the future is swapping out the image in your hero. We&#8217;ll usually add a semi-transparent overlay to the hero to allow for proper contrast with text, but you still need to take into account how busy your new photo is, if there are areas of light or dark that make some of your text less legible, and if you need to increase the opacity of the overlay (which you can do right in WordPress, ask us how!) or increase the size of the text. Which leads us to&#8230;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2. Type Size</h2>



<p>This is connected to the above tip, as you&#8217;ll see if you test out Contrast Checker. Not only does it tell you whether the contrast of colours is high enough, it tells you at what size of type the contrast becomes high enough. This means that colour combos that don&#8217;t work for body text could still work as an H2 or H3 heading. As with most things, form follows function, but it feels extra important when we&#8217;re talking about text, because if contrast is too low to read, the text has zero function at all. I see this very often with things like wedding photographers websites. I get that tan on cream looks elegant, and a tiny font looks classy and understated, but none of it matters if potential clients cannot read what you&#8217;re offering. </p>



<p>Font size 16px is considered the standard web equivalent of 12pt printed text, so we don&#8217;t go lower than that.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3. Alt text! All the time!</h2>



<p>This in another one to develop a strong habit around right from the get-go. Otherwise it’s a pain to go back through your whole media library. Every time you upload a new image, go into your media library and add your alt text right away, before you add it to your page or post. It’s non-negotiable, especially if your images are anything other that purely decorative. No one if going to buy your product if they don’t know what it looks like because their screen reader can’t describe it to them. </p>



<p>Which brings us to an important addendum to Tip #3, which is to focus your alt text on the information that’s most important in the image, rather than purely on painting a picture. For example, I could post a photo and write that it features a stunning redhead wearing a yellow shirt holding a magnificent black cat with big yellow eyes and an adorable collar with polka dots. It paints a picture, sure. But what&#8217;s more important than the colour of the hair or the shirt or the cat, is the fact that the cat has claws bared and is attempting to bite the stunning redhead, who is holding on for dear life with an expression of terror on her face. That one actually tells you what&#8217;s going on in the photo, instead of not-so-relevant visual details of the photo.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">4. Button or Link?</h2>



<p>A simple rule to follow is this: buttons are for taking action and links are for navigating somewhere. Anything you’d refer to as a call to action—sign up for our newsletter, download a template, send a contact form—should be a button. Anything whose primary job is to take you somewhere else—the main menu, mention of a previous blog post or link to an external website (both of which we’ve done above) should be a link. In WordPress, when you choose a block like a button or you use the text editor to add a link, is creates code that tags that element on your page. Screen readers read those tags and tell the user what they are, and consistent use of the correct element helps the user understand what’s going to happen when they click something. This is also why it’s important to label your buttons clearly with what they do, and when you’re creating links, highlight relevant text for the screen reader to communicate. Only adding your link to the word “here” at the end of a sentence doesn’t give any useful information.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5. Accessibility overlays</h2>



<p>This one is easy &#8212; don&#8217;t use them! This sounds counter-intuitive, but the reality is that these plugins just mask accessibility issues, and get in the way of assistive technologies. This is one of the areas that we as developers and you as the website owner can work together on. By using proper text units in the code—rems or ems instead of pixels—we’re getting out of the way of the accessibility features built into computer settings that allow users to set their own type size, typeface and zoom factor. By ensuring every new piece of content you add meets colour contrast standards, you don’t need a dark-mode overlay for users to get an accessible reading experience.</p>



<p>Keeping your content and your site accessible is so important to making sure everyone who reads it has a great experience, and with a few new tools and some good habits, you have the power to make it happen. And as always, just drop us a line if you’ve got questions! We’re always happy to chat.</p>


Top 5 Accessibility Tips for Your WordPress Website


<p>The beauty of applying our simple and specific principles is that we can work the same way no matter the size of the project. The actual steps of the solution may differ but the problem to solve is the same: how do we take all the information we have and organize it in a way that’s logical and easy to follow, and communicates clearly with both the owner of the site and the audience the owner wants to reach.</p>



<p>To means that while training in how to use your the backend of your website is one of your last steps, planning for how to set up the backend of your website is one of our first steps. We build all our websites to be editable by you, the client, because we believe it&#8217;s important that you feel like you&#8217;re in control of your website and not the other way around. Here are some examples of what this looks like for three different projects.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1. Keep what you need, ditch what you don&#8217;t</h2>



<p>Remember when I talked before about how <a href="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/2025/01/05/intro-to-human-centred-design/" data-type="post" data-id="211" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">working only on code with no connection to clients</a> or users meant I was guided mostly by what made my developer life easier? Well now I’m prompted to find new ways to make life easier for clients. For example, I recently transitioned writer Tanya from an old (5 human year, so like 20 internet years) and no-longer-updated theme to the latest WordPress Gutenberg theme. No fancy backend, no custom post types or code of any kind (except a few lines of custom styles. I can’t help myself!) While the website is now fresh and clean, her dashboard views are either exactly the same, or simpler than before because we pared back everything she didn&#8217;t need. We did a Zoom training to go through the changes and create a list of items she wanted for her reference document, aka WordPress cheatsheet. Going with the simplest option that fulfills the brief means she can focus on adding in her new books, posting tour dates and speaking engagements and writing blog posts. (Bonus for us: because the cheatsheet is for the basic WordPress backend, we can reuse it with other clients too).</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2. Build in flexibility</h2>



<p>Your website is more than just a pretty face. It&#8217;s a tool, and you should be confident putting it to work.</p>



<p>I rejoice every time I get the little notification from our hosting company that a client has made an update to their site. It could be anything, the notification doesn’t say, but I know they’ve added a blog post, updated an offering, edited a bio. And it’s just so gratifying to know they feel empowered to do that and to use their site as tool, and to know they are in control of their web presence. Dean of <a href="https://www.hearthplace.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hearth Place Counselling</a> is a star when it comes to this. </p>



<p>We built this website when they were returning to work after a brain injury, and they knew they wanted to take it slow, start small, and leave room to build, grow and refine as they were able.</p>



<p>As we&#8217;ve discussed before, <a href="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/2023/12/06/why-training-is-crucial-piece-of-our-accessible-website-process/" data-type="post" data-id="134">client training is part of our overall approach to accessibility</a>, it was no different for Dean. They opted for video trainings so we could record ourselves and Dean could revisit the recordings whenever needed. We made a list of topics to cover, split the list into two sessions and made our recordings. We were available for questions by email and phone for a month after launch so Dean could contact us if they ever got stuck. </p>



<p>Since we launched the site, Dean has moved into offering training for other counsellors and so has added a page for trainings. They&#8217;re offering more and different retreat options, and so used the mix-and-match component library to control how the new information would be displayed, confident it would match the existing structure and style of the site. They added new modalities to their counselling practice, using the template we built for that purpose to ensure any new addition would appear seamlessly on the page.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3. Scale with intention</h2>



<p>When we get into even bigger and more complex sites, it becomes even more important to plan for a logical and accessible backend from the very beginning of the project. With Asparagus, we new there wouldn&#8217;t just be one person making update, but a small team of people managing the regular task of adding articles and columns, creating new contributor bios and more. </p>



<p>To scale up like this meant we leaned heavily on the directive to keep things as simple as possible and as specific as possible. We made use of as many built-in WordPress capabilities as possible so that team members who were already familiar with WordPress would see a dashboard they recognized (it also saves budget to use what&#8217;s available to us before turning to custom code). When we hit the end of the built-in functions, we extended them with our custom set-up designed to match the team&#8217;s workflow, avoiding any duplicate content entry, using clear and concise instructions for each task, and writing informative error messages in case anything goes wrong. </p>



<p>The end result is a system that is both consistent and flexible, giving the team the freedom they want to grow and change things up, and the familiarity to make changes quickly and confidently. It has been so gratifying to see the Asparagus team make their site work hard for them and their readers.</p>



<p>All of this to say, we&#8217;ve got you. Your experience of your own site should be just as fulfilling as the experience you create for your clients, and we work hard to make it that way.</p>


The Accessibility Process Has Two Sides: Your Audience AND Your Team


<p>We love redesigns because you already have so much information to work with. In the broader application of the human-centred design approach, redesign for us falls under the fourth principle: iterate. You’ve tried one thing (or maybe a few things) and now it’s time to bring together everything you’ve learned about what’s (not) working to make the next version simpler, more specific and more in tune with what your people need.</p>



<p>But in the smaller world of your website, we start from the top, with principle number 1: Solve the right problem.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s this assumption that redesigns are about the look, which makes sense. If something isn&#8217;t going right, or could be going better, the first suspect is going to be the part you can see. But the way the website looks is a direct result of who the website is for and what the website should do for them and how it should make them feel. AKA your brand.</p>



<p>A redesign is necessarily guided by a change in your brand. </p>



<p>Is the problem that your website is dated and you no longer like the look? Maybe. But more likely the problem is the visual no longer reflects your message. Or the message no longer reflects what you offer. Or the offer itself has changed. So before we even start thinking about new colours or fancy animations, we need to zero in on the problem your site is no longer solving, or the new problem that&#8217;s arisen that your website needs to start solving, and then design for that. The visual is the last step, and in some cases doesn&#8217;t even need to change much. </p>



<p>For example we have a client, <a href="https://boundariesleather.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BoundAries Leather,</a> who creates handmade and bespoke leather items, including kink and fetish gear, for a primarily queer audience. They have a brick-and-mortar leatherwork and cobbling shop <a href="https://awltogetherleather.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">(we built their website!)</a> with a broader range of services, and this website was used to separate out the sexier items. They didn’t want a rebrand. They know who their audience is and they know their values and messaging speak to that audience. So what’s the problem? In this case it’s both practical and ideological. They used to sell their products on Etsy, and just used their website and social media to direct customers there. But in the summer of 2024 Etsy cracked down on anything sex-related, and in particular queer-related products. Not cool. BoundAries decided to move away from Etsy both because it no longer aligns with their values, and because they need to be able to sell online, and do it on a platform they own. </p>



<p>Clearly identifying the problem right away means the solution tends to be much quicker to present itself. We kept the feel of the brand the same by sticking with the existing colour palette and updating the type to a slightly more sleek combo. Then we built out a site that organizes all their beautiful products into easy-to-navigate categories and uses WooCommerce to for a lovely and simple checkout experience, even on items that have multiple different options to choose from, including size, leather type, colour and hardware. The end result is a site that not only solves our key problem, but also represents the brand in a way that&#8217;s clearer and more compelling than Etsy could ever do. </p>



<p>Let&#8217;s look at an example of a different (thought not entirely unrelated) problems that led to different solutions.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.asparagusmagazine.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Asparagus Magazine</a> is another story of an organization that used an affordable existing platform and shop to make a name for themselves and get their work out there, in this case using Medium as a publishing platform After several years of posting articles via a system designed by and for someone else, the Asparagus team was acutely aware of it&#8217;s limitations and very clear on the features they needed to take the magazine into its next chapter. </p>



<p>Here are the key problems:</p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Very limited analytics &#8211; could see traffic spikes but couldn&#8217;t see where that traffic was coming from or what article it was landing on. Asparagus needs thorough analytics data because they need to know what articles resonate most with their readers, and where those readers are finding the articles.</li>



<li>Very limited customization of the visual brand &#8211; there was a logo and a signature Bright Green and almost nothing beyond that. The magazine had jumped from online-only to print publishing, and with that jump came a brand design process to help solidify who they are and who they&#8217;re speaking to. Medium as platform couldn&#8217;t keep up with the changes or accurately translate the new branding elements to the web. </li>



<li>Very limited customization of site structure &#8211; with an increasing catalogue of articles on a variety of subjects, the need for better organization was becoming increasingly important.</li>
</ol>



<p>Identifying the key problems is the first step in taking a strategy-first approach. The flow chart looks something like this: Problem (what&#8217;s getting in the way of your goals) -> strategy (how to remove those obstacles) -> visuals (what does it look like now that those obstacles are gone)</p>



<p>Unlike in the Boundaries example, the ability to match custom brand elements to the website was identified early on as a key problem to solve, so we knew from the start this website needed to be custom designed. Multiple factors told us we&#8217;d need custom code to achieve the magazine&#8217;s aims: First, there was a huge volume of data &#8212; from articles to columns to contributor bios to custom-commissioned artwork and photography. Second, the primary goal is to have visitors read as many articles as possible, clicking their way through multiple stories and topics. User experience needed to be paramount, which means impeccable organization and categorization, full code accessibility and great page speed. </p>



<p>These factors in turn guided the designs decisions: we designed article cards that are art-forward and provide multiple opportunities for readers to choose their next article (click the byline for more by an author, or click one of the primary category buttons for more on a topic); we built pages that are colourful, consistent and clean; and we created a multi-layered category navigation that&#8217;s accessible at all times. Finally, we installed Google Analytics and created custom event trackers so the team had the most complete view possible of how readers use the site.</p>



<p>The real magic of this approach is that is means you&#8217;re never pulling answers out of thin air. Have you ever heard the expression &#8220;form follows function&#8221;? We heard it non-stop in writing school to remind us that if a sentence doesn&#8217;t move the story forward, it doesn&#8217;t matter how nice it sounds. It&#8217;s gotta go. If a visual element doesn&#8217;t serve your goals, it&#8217;s gotta go, no matter how much you might love it and want to incorporate it (another common, if slightly more ruthless, writing motto is &#8220;kill your darlings.&#8221; Make of that what you will).</p>



<p>This approach also means we rarely suggest custom work for a first website. You&#8217;ll know so much more about your organization, your audience, your goals, how you like to work, after being in operation for a few years. When you do decide you&#8217;re ready for custom work, we&#8217;ll be able to clearly identify your key problems, and the time and money you spend on that custom work will go further and serve you better.</p>



<p>If you start off with the right problem, it&#8217;s much more likely the solutions will fall into place.</p>


Principle 1: Is your redesign solving the right problem?


<p>&#8220;Copy&#8221; is a misleadingly boring word for a tool that does a huge amount of the heaving lifting for your brand, your website and your overall content strategy.</p>



<p>We include copywriting in every package we sell, from the smallest and most boilerplate to the biggest custom projects. We do it because we&#8217;ve learned that while there&#8217;s a host of factors that going into building a clear brand, good copy is often the key to unlocking all those other factors. And just because your business is new or you don’t have a ton of money to spend on a custom website, that doesn’t mean that the words on your website aren’t a crucial piece of enticing people to work with you or give you money. If we have to pick one aspect of brand-building to focus on, we focus on copy.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Backstory</h3>



<p>We used to create a google doc with a bunch of blank spaces that correspond to spots on the website that need copy. We’d build the site with dummy text and wait for clients to fill out that google doc. </p>



<p>Part of the rationale was affordability. A lot of our clients were very small, wanted a an affordable theme and no extra frills (spoiler: turns out they’re not frills at all! They are a very structural part of the outfit) and so weren’t keen on spending extra money on brand strategy or on professional copywriting. The problem with that is that it assumes that these clients, who were experts in their own work, were magically also experts at copywriting and content strategy. Obviously that assumption is very much erroneous.</p>



<p>The other part of the rationale was that if we’re not putting in the time to fully understand the goals of the business, the feel of it, the intended audience, the struggles and triumphs that led here (which is to say, the branding work) then we had no idea what to write for a given client. It seemed to make sense to have the client do it. </p>



<p>But waiting on clients to do their own copywriting (it&#8217;s challenging!) meant projects took way longer than necessary, and the results were websites that looked good but couldn’t do the important work a website should be doing for you to connect with people and communicate what you do, why you do it, and who you do it for. I often closed out projects feeling a little guilty that we weren’t doing a better job of setting clients up for success, and on top of that, it was a bummer not to put my own marketing training and decade of writing experience to good use. </p>



<p>The process needed to change.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Solution</h3>



<p>We had to start with some internal work. What are our values and how are those reflected in how we package and offer our services? Here is what it boils down to?</p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Accessibility, both code-wise, strategy-wise and money-wise</li>



<li>Usability, for both the end user navigating the site, but also for the client using the site as tool, not just as a glorified business card.</li>



<li>Human-centred approach &#8211; You’re so much more than a pretty website. Think in systems and focus on what the people need. If we’re want to actually support organizations to achieve their goals, we have to take a big-picture view, even on the smallest projects.</li>
</ol>



<p>Custom design and cutting-edge code are fun, but we realized looking at our values that those actually weren&#8217;t the priorities. And more than that, we realized we were kind of approaching things backward. Rather than skip strategy, we need to start with it, and let the rest unfold from there. In the early stages of business, having a strong grasp not only on what you&#8217;re offering, but also who you&#8217;re offering it to, and why and how you&#8217;re offering it, is more important than the perfect colour scheme or custom code. And once you know your whats, whys, and whos, it suddenly becomes much easier to do things like pick colours and images and round out your brand visuals. </p>



<p>We realized that copywriting provides a framework for asking these questions and teasing out thorough and nuanced answers. Copywriting is the gateway to brand strategy. </p>



<p>The next step was the figure out a system to help us guide clients through these questions, encourage them to get wordy and nerdy about their work and draw out what really makes them shine. Without the pressure of having to write capital-C Copy, clients are free to gush about their work and all the great things they want to do in the world. </p>



<p>In keeping with financial accessibility for fledgling organizations, this system needed to be easily repeatable for us, clear enough for clients with no writing experience (or who have convinced themselves they&#8217;re not good writers) and flexible enough to work for clients across a variety of fields. It also needed to produce enough copy for a whole website while still being manageable for clients. </p>



<p>The result: the Proust Questionnaire of Copywriting Prompts. (Is that grandiose? Yes. Are we having fun? Also yes.)</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">How we do copywriting now</h3>



<p>Now instead of a template with spaces on the page corresponding to blank spaces on a website, we give you a page of prompts meant to draw out what matters to you, how you see your field and/or the larger world, what it&#8217;s like to work with you and more. When we start a new project, this questionnaire is now the very first step, and we don&#8217;t proceed to design and build until it&#8217;s complete. </p>



<p>The difference is magical. </p>



<p>Clients write down clear ideas and clever turns of phrase and very smart insights about their industries and their place in their communities. They let their passion for their work and the impact they want to have come through in big ways. They give us everything we need to create beautiful copy that sounds like them, speaks to their people and makes it abundantly clear why they&#8217;re the best at what they do. </p>



<p>The other benefit of starting like this is that you know that when you outgrow your starter website and you&#8217;re ready to jump into one custom-designed for you, you can be confident you&#8217;ve got a strong foundation to build on.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re looking to freshen up your own website copy and want to give the questionnaire a try, just sign up for the newsletter at the bottom of this page and we&#8217;ll send it to you. </p>


Why we always start with copy


<p>Let me preface this by saying we are nowhere near perfect, the tech oligarch tentacles are everywhere, and it&#8217;s going to be a long and ongoing and imperfect process for us all to feel good about the tools and the companies we&#8217;re supporting in this increasingly dystopian landscape, both online and IRL.</p>



<p>That said, if you&#8217;re freaking out a little about the fact that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/meta-facts-trump-musk-community-notes-413b8495939a058ff2d25fd23f2e0f43" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Meta ended fact-checking</a> on all its social media platforms (I mean, did they ever actually check a fact?), <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meta-immigration-gender-policies-change/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">removed protections for queer and trans</a> people from its Hateful Conduct policy and has a CEO who has become an unabashed (he was maybe just a little bashed before) shill for America’s Cheetoh in Chief, there are options. We can make choices. </p>



<p>This isn’t exactly a hot take. Lots of people have written lots of things about why they are or aren’t leaving Meta. This is more like an attempt to offer some support in making your choices right now. I’d love to one day write the definitive guide to freeing yourself from both Meta and Google, but that day is not to-day. One step at a time is how we get where we&#8217;re going.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How to decide? The same way we decide anything</h2>



<p>I’m all about decision-making processes these days, and I’m in the middle of hashing out several such processes in different areas of my life (thank you, co-op living) so it makes sense to apply a framework we’re already familiar with to help make these internet decisions. Can we put this one through our <a href="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/2025/01/05/intro-to-human-centred-design/" data-type="post" data-id="211">four-step, human-centred design framework?</a> Let’s try it.</p>



<p></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Solve the right problem</h3>



<p>Already one of the reasons we’re focusing on blog posts instead of a robust and detailed social media marketing strategy is that we own our website and our email list, which gives us more control over who we reach and results in less buffeting by the whims of the conservative shills who own the platforms. (Also we’re millennials and get tired just thinking about video content, though we may have to revisit the benefits of TikTok as a platform. But I digress.)</p>



<p>Before we leave a platform we need a firm grasp on why we’re using it in the first place and what it does for us. In our case, Instagram is a bridge from a large collection of internet users and our own website. It gives us a chance to look for people who are picking up what we’re putting down, and invite them to the platform where we can share more of what we want to share, the way we want to share it. It takes a large but unfocused audience and filters it into a much smaller but much more focused and aligned audience. It doesn’t take up too much of our time so we can focus on creating more long form content and playing to our strengths.</p>



<p>So the replacement platform needs to give us access to a large and diverse audience for free, and allow content-sharing that is primarily text and photo based.</p>



<p></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Focus on People </h3>



<p>The cardinal rule of any plan, marketing or otherwise, is that it has to be doable by the people who have to do it. With that in mind, would TikTok be a good replacement for us? Probably not. We’d have to get up the gumption to make videos at all, and then learn the various skills required to make them look and sound half decent. That sounds very time consuming, and therefore does not solve the &#8220;doesn&#8217;t take too much time&#8221; arm of the problem we identified in step one.</p>



<p>So how about Bluesky, the Twitter dupe that claims to be open and decentralized and committed to re-establishing the protections and backstops of the social media of yore. It’s text-based but allows for image-sharing, and even has one significant advantage over Instagram in Canada — it allows link sharing. We love to share a link!</p>



<p>In addition to working for your skill set, I do think it’s important that your strategies have to work for your soul. Which is dramatic, I know, but it’s also kind of the central question we’re all asking right now. </p>



<p>A few years ago I moved our web hosting from Bluehost to DreamHost (who is coming up with these names) after learning that Bluehost helped fund a campaign in California to strike down marriage equality for queer people. Not cool in any universe, but since one half of Flegg Creative, and a higher-than-average proportion of FC clients, are queer, it hit especially close to home. I started this ongoing process of moving away from Google after October 7, 2023 when I learned that the company is not merely passively complicit in the genocide of Palestine, it is <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/22/24349582/google-israel-defense-forces-idf-contract-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">actively facilitating it.</a></p>



<p>You can decide what trade-offs you’re willing to make. Does Bluesky have a significantly smaller user base than Instagram? Yes. Does participating in Bluesky do less damage to your psyche on account of at least having a policy that doesn’t permit hate speech (we’ll see how it plays out in practice)? Quite possibly also yes.</p>



<p></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Think in Systems</h3>



<p>In our previous post we talked about how this step is very much about knowing who is in your ecosystems and what are the links between them. In this case, we can ask questions like, who do we need to reach, how many people to we need to reach, and where are they likely to be?</p>



<p>The people on Instagram who were into our message and likely to click from our account to our website, where are they headed? Based on my feed, the vast majority of people who have stated they’re leaving Meta have also stated they’re moving to Bluesky, not LinkedIn or Mastadon or Discord. LinkedIn posts might suit my long form habits a little better than Bluesky, but it probably makes sense to pick a replacement platform that exists within the ecosystem of the people I need to reach.</p>



<p>With everyone scrambling to figure out what to do and what platforms suit them best, it could take some time and some experimentation to find out the answers to these questions. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DEYXvS5S2mG/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">This in an informative post by @theindigenousanarchist</a> about the various numbers and affiliations and uses of a handful of Meta alternatives, and it’s a great example of doing the research to understand where the people in your system are likely to head, and what needs they’ll be looking fulfill with different platforms.</p>



<p></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Test and Try Again.</h3>



<p>None of this is set in stone, so why not try it out and see if it works? We know what we’re hoping to get out of it, so we can look to the right metrics to measure progress. Web traffic is a simple one. I hypothesize that if we make this transition our web traffics from social media will drop for a bit as we build a following on a new platform and give people a chance to find us. If we follow our plan and post on our schedule and engage with this new platform, I suspect our traffic will start to go back up. It’ll take time, so I’ll set a timeframe of probably three months before jumping to any conclusions or making any other big changes. If this move doesn’t ultimately work out, we’ll take what we’ve learned and keep searching for the right platform or the right method. </p>



<p>Nobody is perfect, and perfection is not a reasonable standard to hold yourself to, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be always on the lookout for new things to try and new ways to improve. The more you know, the more options you’ll have.</p>



<p>Let us know what your process has been for making these decisions, and if you&#8217;ve found new platforms or communities that you love. (And of course, follow us on Bluesky @fleggcreative.bsky.social)</p>


What is Ethical Tech?


<p>As we approach a new year, we&#8217;ve been reviewing what worked and what didn&#8217;t work in our processes (we tend to do a bit of this after ever project, see Principle 4, but I won&#8217;t get ahead of myself) and we&#8217;ve been considering what to change&#8211;both in what we offer and how we offer it&#8211;to improve the experience for you, the experience for us, and the final product we deliver.</p>



<p>So in the spirit of low-pressure, continuous improvements and extremely low-key fresh starts (nobody likes a high-pressure New Year situation), now seems like a great time to talk a bit about how we approach our work, regardless of the client or the size of the project, and why we do it. We work with a diverse clientele and offer a variety of services, but no matter the job, we’re always guided by the same set of basic principles.</p>



<p>It says in our Instagram bio, &#8220;In the age of internet overwhelm, we aim to simplify.&#8221; Human-centred design is how we do it. Put another way, my elevator pitch for human-centred design is this: the continuous march toward simplicity and specificity.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What is Human-Centred Design?</h3>



<p>Human-centred design is a framework made up of four basic principles that can be applied to everything from physical products, like electric toothbrushes, and digital services, like marketing websites, all the way up to complex systems like healthcare administration and voting systems. The four principles are as follows:</p>



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Solve the right problem</li>



<li>Focus on people</li>



<li>Think system-wide</li>



<li>Test, refine, test again</li>
</ol>



<p>Let&#8217;s take them one at a time.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Solve the Right Problem</h3>



<p>Have you watched The Bear? During one of the scenes where mean-girl chef Joel Mchale is berating Carmy, he mocks him for all the different elements he has on the plate. Are you going to add another sauce? Another element? How about another garnish? etc, etc. Kitchen trauma aside, this kind of approach to creation is a good analogue for how we apply the first principle of human-centred design to brand building and web design.</p>



<p>Keeping things as simple as possible by removing all the unnecessary elements lets us see what&#8217;s important. We&#8217;ve had people come to us looking for a custom site, but their list of technical needs can be easily met with plugins and a good quality pre-made theme. If we recognize that we don&#8217;t <em>need</em> custom code (at least not at this stage) we can see that the budget is better spent on copy writing and newsletter development to help their people find and learn about them. Other times it&#8217;s the opposite: there&#8217;s a plugin for every feature you think you might want, but what your brand actually relies on to stand out is a bold, unique visual experience that just can&#8217;t be achieved without custom design and interactivity.</p>



<p>To identify the right problem, and then solve the right problem, you first need to be able to see it. Once you can see clearly, it&#8217;s a lot easier to focus your efforts on the areas that will make the most difference. Say you&#8217;re getting excellent testimonials from your customers, but you aren&#8217;t getting enough new customers to sustain yourself. The data says that while certain metrics like bounce rate (the percentage of people who read more than just the homepage of your website) are great, your overall traffic is low. You could create the most beautiful, innovative visual design, and your traffic won&#8217;t improve because the real problem is that your marketing strategy is targeting the wrong people and your ideal clients are struggling to find you. Solving the right problem saves a lot of headaches and a lot of money.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Focus on People</h3>



<p>It can be surprisingly easy to forget this one. Before we started Flegg Creative, I worked exclusively as a coder on a larger team. I didn&#8217;t talk to clients and had very little say in the branding or marketing of any given project. I was just given designs to code and problems to solve. It was fun until I started to feel like my work was primarily serving my own curiosities and desires to learn new techniques or try new tools. Developer ego was getting in the way of building for people. The decisions I was making had little to do with the end user, because I had no connection with those users. I decided I wanted to change that. Now I get to be involved in every step of the process, from imagining and planning to designing and building. </p>



<p>Designing for tech instead of designing for people is one of the reasons that things like load time and operating system requirements are a big part of accessibility. It&#8217;s also what has led to the constant rise in the cost of computers and phones.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s fun to use the latest tools and software, things that can make your life easier as you build websites, help you feel more creative or more efficient. But in the end we&#8217;re not doing it for the ease of our own experience as creators. We&#8217;re going it for the ease of the experience of our clients and their users. Which means we&#8217;re judicious in our selection of tools and tech. If it&#8217;s not accessible and usable for our audience and yours, it&#8217;s gotta go.</p>



<p>For us, at the end of the day, focus on people really means live in the real world. Humans aren’t perfect (you could probably argue that imperfection is one of our defining characteristics) so if we create with the assumption that no one ever makes mistakes or misses cues or skips an instruction, all we’re doing is making things less accessible for everyone. Human error is a given, so we work toward simplicity, clarity and specificity to make sure the message gets across. When we design for people, it&#8217;s not sexy to be mysterious.</p>



<p></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Think about systems.</h3>



<p>I find this one is actually closely connected to solving the right problem because to find the right problem, you need to see how each piece of your work connects to every other piece. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Whether your project or organization is big or small, you exist within a system. It could be that you combine a brick-and-mortar with online sales or client intakes. Your marketing efforts are primarily in-person and in-print, but you drive traffic to your online newsletter sign up and communicate by email. Mapping out your whole system gives you a clearer idea of where the weak spots are, and what needs to change to address them. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s also helpful to think about your system in terms of who is in it. Who are your stakeholders? In other words, who is impacted by your work, by your organization, by what you&#8217;re putting out into the world? How will your website redesign or your brand update or your outreach strategy serve all of them? This is especially useful when you have a large and varied audience and you need an approach that can reach all of them, one way or another. Thinking in terms of the whole systems means all the moving parts are treated thoughtfully and intentionally in service of the larger goal.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Iterate (aka Test-and-Try-Again)</h3>



<p>The irony is that human-centred design&#8211;something predicated on simplicity and usability&#8211;is sometimes talked about in pretty jargon-y terms. Things like <em>ideate</em> and <em>iterate.</em> (I know &#8220;iteration&#8221; is a real word with a pretty reasonable meaning but it&#8217;s thrown around so often in tech bro settings that I&#8217;ve grown to hate it a little.) But the core idea is that nothing ever stays the same, and that&#8217;s ok (desirable, even).</p>



<p>Everything is always changing. </p>



<p>This can sound tiring at first. Nothing is ever done? There is no finish line? But the reality is that nothing in life is ever done, things are always changing, and there will always be lots finish lines, large and small, in the road ahead. And acknowledging this fact as you embark on any project&#8211;especially big important projects like a new website&#8211;will liberate you from the idea that there is one chance to achieve the single perfect outcome. </p>



<p>The lovely and talented business consultant <a href="https://sarahmoon.net/">Sarah Moon</a> talks about <a href="https://hey.sarahmoon.net/posts/rough-draft-thinking">rough draft thinking</a> as being the antidote to paralyzing perfectionism, and I find this to be a very helpful concept in many aspects of life an work. I&#8217;m frequently guilty of wanting so badly to put only my best foot forward that I end up putting no feet forward (ahem, see this blog). And I find it&#8217;s helpful was to frame the idea of iteration, that continuous cycle of observation and improvement. </p>



<p>Yes, it&#8217;s good to think about the future, to envision your future needs and goals and start to plan for them, but it&#8217;s important to remember that right now, this moment is definitely not your last chance to consider the needs of future you. You can make changes, you can see what works and decide whether you want to go all-in or pivot. You can break things down into steps and stages and tackle one thing at a time (we&#8217;re big fans of breaking things down into stages). You can take the pressure off. In the end iteration just means we have lots of chances to come up with brilliant new ideas.</p>



<p>So there it is, the framework we use to guide our decisions and continually refine our process, always working to simplify and clarify. Try looking at your own projects through the lens of human-centred design and see if things come into focus (sorry! not really).</p>


Intro to Human-Centred Design


<p>Client and friend Seed Biggar just launched their new online shop at <a href="https://knitboneceramics.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">knitboneceramics.com</a>! We did the branding photography (#allFilmAllTheTime) and configured a Shopify theme to match the brand and take the shop live.</p>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="883" src="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-05-at-11.48.03-AM-1024x883.png" alt="" class="wp-image-135" srcset="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-05-at-11.48.03-AM-1024x883.png 1024w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-05-at-11.48.03-AM-300x259.png 300w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-05-at-11.48.03-AM-768x662.png 768w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-05-at-11.48.03-AM-1536x1325.png 1536w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-05-at-11.48.03-AM.png 1860w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<p>I want to talk about this project partly because I want to show off our film photos of Seed&#8217;s beautiful work and bright studio, and partly because it&#8217;s a great example of what we mean when we say your website needs to be accessible for your customers AND for you. </p>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">All the Tools You Need, None You Don&#8217;t</h2>



<p>Seed, artist and owner of Knitbone Ceramics, reached out a little while ago after subscribing to Shopify for their online shop. They&#8217;d hit a wall, and were looking for some support to learn the system and get the shop up and running in time for the holiday rush.</p>



<p>Despite being marketed to small business owners with the promise that they can set up and administer their own shops, most website builders aren&#8217;t super intuitive (especially if it&#8217;s not your job to know about a variety of website builders). It&#8217;s not uncommon for clients to come to us at their absolute wits&#8217; end when their chosen website builder won&#8217;t behave. </p>



<p>Your website should be your favourite tool. Powerful, versatile, and just the right size for you. It shouldn&#8217;t be shrouded in mystery. While we pride ourselves on our ongoing client relationships, we don&#8217;t want you to have to call us every time you want to update your website or make a small change. This philosophy guides the software and services we use. It also informs our approach to the training we offer, regardless of the tech stack.</p>



<p>Here&#8217;s how we approached this project.</p>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Step 1</h2>



<p>The first step (as with all our projects, big or small) is to learn about the brand. Seed was looking for a free theme, and Shopify has a decent selection, so I needed to know more about how the site should feel (clean, calming, photo-forward) and who it should speak to (pottery collectors, people interested in one-of-a-kind work, appreciators of experimentation, creative expression and the beautiful imperfections inherent to handmade objects).</p>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Step 2</h2>



<p>After choosing a theme and doing the basic set up, we had our first in-person meeting (conveniently coincided with shoot day on the mainland!). I gave a demo of the theme itself and went over the basic functions like how to add products and group them into collections, and how to access the page layout customizer. Then we proceeded to shoot a handful of rolls of film, and I left the draft site with Seed to poke around in.</p>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Step 3</h2>



<p>We met over Zoom a few weeks later, and both of us showed up with a list of things to go over and questions to ask. We went through each item and reviewed the things we&#8217;d first looked on shoot day. It meant the meeting was thorough and efficient, and Seed left with the knowledge they needed to make the site match their shop vision.</p>



<p>We picked a launch date and we scheduled a final site review so I could give feedback, Seed could ask final questions and we could both ensure every page looked tip-top and ready to go forth into the world.</p>



<p>This multi-step situation is really important, because in the majority of cases, it doesn&#8217;t matter how thoroughly you address every detail of site function. A person still needs to get in there themselves, play around, check out the options. Only then will they know what questions they really need to ask to become confident using their website.</p>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A New Approach</h2>



<p>In the past few years I&#8217;ve been involved in so many projects where the intention was to be client friendly, with software and design geared toward you updating your own website whenever needed, but the reality was that clients felt intimidated by their sites and defaulted to calling the developer to make simple changes. That&#8217;s an expensive and disempowering way to manage your site. When we launched Flegg Creative, we knew we wanted things to be different for our clients.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re looking for support with your website and are curious about how we can help, drop us a line! <a href="mailto:hello@fleggcreative.ca">hello@fleggcreative.ca</a>.</p>



<p>And without further ado, have a look at some of Knitbone&#8217;s photo collection! We&#8217;re pretty proud of these ones.</p>



<div style="height:50px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<figure class="wp-block-gallery aligncenter has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
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<figure class="wp-block-image size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="201" height="300" data-id="147" src="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EF011123083413-24-201x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-147" srcset="https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EF011123083413-24-201x300.jpg 201w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EF011123083413-24-686x1024.jpg 686w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EF011123083413-24-768x1146.jpg 768w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EF011123083413-24-1030x1536.jpg 1030w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EF011123083413-24-1373x2048.jpg 1373w, https://staging.fleggcreative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EF011123083413-24-scaled.jpg 1716w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px" /></figure>



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Why training is crucial piece of our accessible website process


<p>The conversation around accessibility, including the definition of web accessibility, is shifting from a binary between disabled and non-disabled users to a more nuanced understanding of the fluid nature of access needs over time. This broader way of thinking about accessibility is good for your clients, for your business and for the world we want to live in.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Expanding How We Think About Access</h2>



<p>This way of thinking isn’t new, and in the world of industrial design it’s known as the curb cut effect. The project of grading sidewalks down to street level was begun with the intention of accommodating people in wheelchairs (and was the result of a huge amount of work and advocacy by disability organizers in California), but it soon became clear that curb cuts benefited far more people than just wheelchair users. It benefits people pushing strollers, people pulling rolling luggage or grocery carts, it benefits those who use walkers and people who are recovering from injuries such as broken bones and sprains. In short, it benefits virtually everyone at one time in their lives or another.</p>



<p>We see the proliferation of this idea–sometimes referred to as universal design–in the shift in language from handicapped to accessible when it comes to physical infrastructure. For example, larger parking spaces closer to a building’s entrance are called accessible spaces. Bathrooms with a power door opener and enough space to accommodate a wheelchair are accessible bathrooms. This includes people with permanent disabilities, temporary disabilities, age-related mobility issues, sensory challenges and more. Rather than targeting a specific group of people–a group often labeled and categorized by policy-makers rather than by the people themselves–the focus is on making such spaces usable by as many people as possible regardless of their needs.</p>



<p>We can approach building for the web in the same way.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ability is a Spectrum</h2>



<p>For example, a user otherwise accustomed to working with a mouse or trackpad breaks their dominant arm and needs to navigate via keystrokes with their non-dominant hand for six weeks. A new parent is significantly sleep deprived for the first several months of their child’s life, and the speed at which they’re able to process information is temporarily diminished. As another user ages, their eyesight worsens and they require the option to increase text size. Ability is a spectrum and many people move back and forth along it throughout their lives. Why not build websites and applications on the assumption that we could all, at some point in our lives, require accessible features?<br><br>Studies indicate that roughly 20 percent of the general population have a disability. But that doesn’t capture the whole picture. As <a href="https://www.a11y-collective.com/product/masterclass-web-accessbility-the-business-case/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The A11y Collective’s masterclass</a>  on the business case for accessible design points out, that 20 percent doesn’t include people who are temporarily disabled or those with usual age-related impairments, and it doesn’t include those who don’t self-identify as disabled, but who may live with factors that impact their ability to use the internet, such as dyslexia or colour blindness. When you add up all those people, you’re probably looking at a much larger portion of the population.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Digital Accessibility is for You</h2>



<p>While we tend to think of web accessibility in terms of physical accessibility, focusing on keyboard patterns, scalable text and focus states, there is more we can do to improve accessibility for users with cognitive disabilities, with dyslexia and dyscalculia, and those with mental health challenges such as anxiety or sleep disorders. This even extends beyond design and code to the marketing choices businesses make on their websites. Marketing decisions such as playing on FOMO (24 hours left! Only 3 spots remaining! One-time only offer!) or using <a href="https://www.deceptive.design/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dark patterns</a> designed to trick users into taking actions they didn’t intend, can make websites and applications inaccessible for people with anxiety disorders and brain injuries.</p>



<p>Whether you live with a permanent disability or you’re just trying to order cat food on your phone while your toddler screams in the background, accessible, human-centred design makes life better for everyone.</p>



<p></p>



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<p>Curious about how to make your current site more accessible? Send us a message at <a href="mailto:hello@fleggcreative.ca" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hello@fleggcreative.ca</a> to talk about an accessibility audit!</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><br> </h2>


The Digital Curb Cut Effect


<p>The other day I was in a workshop about Canadian accessibility laws (spoiler: they’re largely toothless but if you sell things online and ship to the US, you can be sued under American legislation) and the conversation turned to familiar technology invented as assistive devices. I thought it might be fun to share a few here.</p>



<p>When it comes to physical infrastructure this is called the curb cut effect, and if you look at the origins of the things we take for granted, you&#8217;ll start to see examples throughout our digital daily life as well. Here are a few that have probably benefited you at least once today.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Keyboards</h2>



<p>We begin way back in 1808. While there is some controversy around who is the true inventor of the letter transcribing machine, aka typewriter (epistolary drama!), there’s a good case to be made for Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri, who built a device for his blind lover Countess Fantoni da Fivizzano so she could more easily write letters. The first commercially produced typewriter was called the writing ball (the keys were assembled in a ball shape above the writing paper) is usually credited to Rasmus Malling-Hansen, who was principal at the Royal Institute for the Deaf in Denmark</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Text Messaging (short message service, aka SMS)</h2>



<p>Texting as we know is just the latest in a line of innovations that began with the teletypewriter</p>



<p>Robert Weitbrecht was born deaf and grew up to be a physicist and an engineer working in radio communications. He used Morse code to communicate with hearing people via radio, but hit up against its limitations when trying to communicate using a conventional phone. Starting with a teletypewriter (TTY) that could only receive messages, he developed the technology that allowed the TTY to both send and receive messages through a regular telephone.</p>



<p>This evolved into the short message service, and the first text message as we know it now was sent in 1992 from a computer to a cell phone. It said &#8220;Merry Christmas.&#8221;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Touchscreens</h2>



<p>With every new invention comes new problems, and this time it’s chronic pain. In the late 90s, American grad student Wayne Westerman got interested in low-impact interactivity.</p>



<p>The first iterations of the touch screen were stylus-based (think your mom’s PalmPilot) and were used as early as 1942 for drawing directly on live tv broadcasts of sports. Several different types of touchscreens technology evolved over the decades–the first finger-driven screen was created in England in 1965.</p>



<p>The technology we know and love today was introduced in 1998 when Westerman started a business called FingerWorks (don’t look at me, I just work here) to sell touch-based keyboards that were especially useful to people with similar repetitive stress injuries. In 2005 the company’s patents, along with Westerman himself, were bought up by (I bet you can see where this is going) Apple Inc. Two years later, the first iPhone was released.</p>



<p>If you know of more modern conveniences that were created by people with disabilities, let us know!</p>


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