Trevor Clendenin Social Media | Accessible Web Design | St. Croix, USVI

By Kristine Schachinger |  Search Engine Watch

As someone who has been building websites for over 11 years, I can tell you the two areas that are the least understood and the most maligned are compliance and accessibility.

Seen as a type of website welfare, only for the few, they are often ignored as an “only if I have to” or “only if I’m sued” addition to most websites. But following W3C compliance and the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) Level AA can help you reach an untapped $13 trillion market, and also reduce your IT costs, ready you for mobile, improve your Google quality score, and organic search engine placements.

Also, adding the accessibility guidelines would require only 2 percent more effort if you’re doing everything else right, so you could have just one website to meet all your needs. (Note: there are some sites where the functionality is so complex a mobile site will be necessary to present users with paired down functionality. However, most sites can be transformed to work with smart phones and dumb phone mobile devices without creating a second site.)

No way you say? Yep, way. Here’s how. Read the rest of this entry »

I am happy to announce that, after a long application process, I was granted a sole-proprietor’s license by the United States Virgin Islands Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs for the Development of Computer Programs/Systems within the Territory. The license became effective on June 25, 2010 and is valid for one year. I certainly anticipate a long and prosperous career as a web designer and social media consultant here in St. Croix, and hope that the “re-licensing” process each year isn’t quite as “thorough.” However, it is an exciting time to be part of the technology transformation that is happening in the territory, and I look forward to working with both private and public organizations to celebrate our unique culture and way of life in the digital age.

The St. Croix Lime

The St. Croix Lime is a lifestyle blog dedicated to the residents and visitors of  the island of St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. The website design was developed on the open source Drupal content management system and integrates popular 3rd-party social media features including Facebook, Twitter, and the Disqus comment management system.

Other features include an iCal integrated Google Calendar, ad management system,  blog, PayPal payments, and live streaming video. With over 1400 Facebook Fans and Twitter followers, the St. Croix Lime is quickly becoming recognized as an important media outlet in the USVI.

If you are looking for an accessible web designer who gets the enormous change that is happening to the web and mobile, call me. Still don’t know what a blog is or why Twitter is important? I can make it easy to understand.