Blog

Screen Reader Survey Results

02 October 2017

I launched a survey to help me answer some lingering questions I have had about what tools screen reader users user to navigate websites. Specifically, I wanted to learn about how users interact with links on a site. What is...

A complicated story about medication and logistics

01 October 2017

I am starting to prep for my next attempt. This one will be medicated, which is terrifying in and of itself. I will be on I’ll be on Clomid (a pill taken orally), Prometrium (a pill taken vaginally, which should...

Hiatus

30 August 2017

Well, IUI attempt #3 was a bust. I am heartbroken, not just because this failed, but because I honestly thought it was going well. I had symptoms. I am even pretty sure they were not psychosomatic. There were days when...

Yes, Virginia. Unique link text really is important.

09 August 2017

One of my biggest pet peeves these days stems around blog or news sites. Your typical blog front page will include a bunch of articles. Each article has a title, a date, maybe an image, and a small bit of...

Manual accessibility testing is your new BFF

08 August 2017

Testing your websites to ensure they are fully accessible is a lot of work. There are a bunch of tools out there to help you thoroughly test your sites - Siteimprove or Tenon, for example. These automated tools do an...

Gearing up for IUI #3

07 August 2017

Yes, I apparently skipped writing about IUI #2. Sorry, folks. I am an inconsistent blogger. Since it has been a while, I will catch you all up now on my IUI rollercoaster. When I used that word in my last...

I'm lost!: A brief introduction to web landmarks

20 July 2017

Let’s pretend for a minute that you are a new visitor to Washington DC. You look around and see a lot of streets, buildings, and other structures. You need to get from one point in the city to another. You...

Stop 👏 putting 👏 text 👏 in 👏 images

18 July 2017

I can’t believe it is 2017 and I have to say this, but stop putting text in your #[email protected]&*% images!!! It boggles my mind that content editors and website managers think this is still OK, but I see it everywhere,...

Bold and strong are not the same thing

10 July 2017

Believe it or not, the <b>, <i>, <strong>, and <em> tags have all been a part of the HTML spec since nearly the beginning. All four of these tags were introduced in HTML 2. However, for a very long time,...

My first IUI rollercoaster

03 July 2017

For those of you who don’t know (and many people don’t), I made the choice to become a single mother after years of debating this. My first actual attempt happened on June 17. I started to work with a fertility...

Keyboard navigation when carousels block your way

20 April 2017

Oh… carousels. Carousels have become a major web design trend over the last several years. They are everywhere, from home pages to slideshows to product galleries. Carousels are terrible. From a content perspective, the majority of users only see the...

A time-out to think

15 March 2017

My doctor-imposed 2-month delay on starting my treatment (thank you chicken pox immunity woes) has given me a lot of time to think. Too much time, really. The tech world has a phenomenon called “imposter syndrome”, where you are working...

Testing, the final tally

21 February 2017

I am finally (gloriously) done with the testing phase. I actually finished last week, but have been procrastinating writing about it. Last week was intense between the HSG, an appointment with the counselor, and the final blood work. Counseling Most,...

HSG: The final (testing) frontier

14 February 2017

This is an intense week of testing due to scheduling and where I am in my cycle. I had my last test today, the HSG, or hysterosalpingogram. (Say that five times fast.) The HSG is simply an X-ray of most...

Prep work update

01 February 2017

I took a couple baby steps in the last 24 hours to prepare my brain and body for the months ahead. Prenatal vitamins I stopped by the store after work last night for a couple of things and figured it...

A new beginning

30 January 2017

I had my initial consultation with Clinic Beta today. I had some initial concern that my experience with this new clinic would mimic that of Clinic Alpha. I was pleasantly surprised. I sat down with the doctor and we went...

Taking action when you have social anxiety

22 January 2017

I attended the Women’s March on January 21, 2017. This march that was the largest inaugural protest in US history, with over 500,000 people in DC alone. I also have anxiety disorder and my anxiety is strongest when I am...

A complicated tale of research

10 January 2017

This is a tale of two fertility clinics. I do not want to use names, so I’ll call them Clinic Alpha and Clinic Beta here. Getting Started My gynecologist referred me to Clinic Alpha first. I had an initial consultation...

The dilemma: A brief introduction

10 January 2017

I want a baby. I am also a single woman, a fact that does not seem to be changing anytime soon. What makes me think I can handle raising another human being by myself? The last living member of the...

Not making new year resolutions

31 December 2016

It has been a year. Some of us have had a really rough year, while others had a pretty good year, but feel awkward admitting that 2016 wasn’t all that bad. At the end of 2015, I had asked for...