- Allow users to switch to a linearised accessible layout. This is very easy since you are using CSS
- Provide a hidden link to let assistive technology users jump repetitive links – you can do this easily with transparent gifs.
- Lay your content out so that with formatting removed you provide the search option up top, and possibly a jump to categories link that saves users scrolling
- Alt tag your images sensibly – note that content currently rendered on images like the music and location of visitors cannot rendered accessibly unless you replace them with a text output.
- Remove the fixed width formatting on the page so that the width resizes with the browser window.
- Replace the font with a sans serif one like Arial – these are easier to read
- Output comment titles as heading 4
- Provide return to top, or jump to categories links
- Use a form just like this for the contact option
- Create a Blogs page link for users to return to your blogs page from the about me section etc. Currently difficult to work out how to do this as there is no ‘home’ option.

If you aren’t sure how your site will render to users concerned with accessibility, a very simple way of doing this is to download and run the Opera Browser (http://www.opera.com/download/). Go to the View menu and select Style, then User mode, and ‘Show Structural Elements’. It will give you a visual insight of how your website is rendered to any assistive technology.

Hope that helps. Feel free to drop me an email if you would like more detail.

- I’d add coComment integration (disclaimer: I work for them); I’m going to put a post up on the coComment blog with links to up-to-date plugins to do that easily with WP.

- I wouldn’t recommend showing only excerpts of your posts. For example, I’ve discovered your blog today. If you’re not using excerpts, I can scroll through your archives and read your posts without having to click around. If you use excerpts and I want to read all the posts you made in August, I might have to click 20 times to read 20 posts, and maybe I’m not actually going to read them all. With full text on one page, I get to skim what I want and read what I want. Remember: in doubt, users don’t click.

I just meant a set of slightly more static pages that are a guide to your current thinking on a particular topic. Your list of tags/page titles is pretty much what I was thinking of. The example page titles in my mind were “Because Of rather than With”, “Moore/Metcalfe/Gilder”, “Four Pillars”, “Social software”. Phrases you use often with a particular meaning in mind that are not totally transparent to the casual reader.

Like a glossary perhaps.

The BIG problem with Drupal is that while it is incredibly powerful (and free), it is a monumental climb. Stuff you think should ‘juest be there’ isn’t, the communitry is a bit stuck up, not a lot of time for newbies, and to get the best from it, you really need to put in time learning its quirks.

Joomla could be an alternative and does provide add-ons for magazine style presentation but while I like its control panel, I’m concerned about its SE friendliness. Has a lot that Drupal has but much simpler to understand and control.

Both provide very sophisticated tagged taxonomy systems and very fine access control.

the reason I say this is because you’re moving into CMS territory with your requests and WP is NOT a CMS.

i like the search-trumps-structure approach, it is intrinsic to my Four Pillars model.

i have completely bought the “page” concept that dom suggested.

as far as the rest is concerned, re-tagging things may be the best way. then my categories become tags and usable as a result.

First of all, I worked at a laboratory that did an early user test of a knowledge-sharing product called Intraspect. The basic philsophy behind this product was that search trumps structure, which interested me a lot, since the primary technical minds behind the product had past track records in areas like knowledge representation and ontological engineering. So the main thing the product did was automatically keep a record of everything you touched and index each record. Did this work? Our own results were inconclusive, so the only result was that our organization decided not to adopt the product.

In this respect it is worth recalling that the original philosophy behind Yahoo! (not to mention its name) involved an ontological network (not strictly tree structured) that seemed to reflect the design philosophy of physical libraries: While a card category can take you directly to a book, once you get there you are interested in what is in the proximity of your destination. Yahoo! Directory still exists, at:

http://dir.yahoo.com/

However, I had to do a fair amount of goal-directed digging to get to it from my own My Yahoo! page. The Search window has pride of place there with six preferred search categories: Web, Images, Video, Local, News, and Shopping. Directory is not one of those categories.

There are two places where I use tags: Yahoo! My Web 2.0 and Flickr. My Flickr tags are strictly for my own convenience (as is my collection). I have never been interested in any content that is not my own. For the most part I consult my tag list (and appreciate the information in the font size) and use search on rare occasions (meaning I am not sure if I have used it more than once).

My use of Yahoo! My Web 2.0 is also pretty much personal, although I occasionally accept “community advice” in the tags I assign. I tried once checking out tag content across the entire community, but there was just too much stuff there. I HAVE used the search tool on Yahoo! My Web 2.0 and found it quite useful.

My blog, which I maintain on Yahoo! 360, involves a variety of threads, not unlike Confused of Calcutta. While I used to enjoy the way in which Usenet would automatically organize discussion threads, I install hyperlinks in my blog entries manually. Stravinsky used to say that he only REALLY began to understand his music when he copied out the parts himself (did I invoke that quote once before?); and I feel the same way about my own blog. Manual hyperlinking obliges me to reflect on what I have written in the past and on how it relates to what I am trying to write in the present. As far as I am concerned a blog is not merely a diary. For my purposes, at least, it seems to be filling in the gap created when Usenet succumbed to Gresham’s Law: It has restored to me an opportunity to “rehearse” material that will subsequently go into papers I submit for publication. If Yahoo! 360 had a search tool as good as the one for Yahoo! My Web 2.0, I would probably use it very heavily; but my own hyperlinking has helped me to get beyond this disadvantage. For the most part the Confused of Calcutta search tool has not helped very much. When I am looking for stuff, the main thing I do is browse the chronological archive index.

Was all that of any use?

I like Dominic’s canonical “this is what I mean” Pages suggestion. And of course feeds for those would be great, too.

Might be hard to achieve automatically in WordPress though.