Steve Sawczyn

  • Testing out the Tumblr Queue

    Do you ever get anoyed when a particular blog or service posts a big batch of posts all at one time? One of the nice things about Tumblr is that it offers the ability to queue posts for later publishing. These posts can then be published over a period of time VS all at once. I’m still trying ot figure out how Tumblr’s Queuing works and of course whether the feature’s accessible. Let’s see what happens.

  • First accessibility issue found with Tumblr's post editor

    Today, I’m giving Tumblr’s built in post editor a look. Although it’s certainly very usable, there are unfortunately some accessibility issues.

    1. There are a few unlabeled edit fields that appear when creating a post, most notably the field used for adding tags to the post. Another unlabeled field is one that allows a source URL to be specified, i.e. to attribute content.
    2. Probably the biggest for me, the editor contains two check box options:
      • Send to Facebook
      • Send to Twitter
      Screen readers see the text, but do not identify either control as a check box. Furthermore, I cannot route my mouse/virtual cursor to this text in order to click it. This is especially disappointing given that the controls are just check boxes after all.

    I’ll continue playing with the editor, but will also report these issues to Tumblr. In a way, it’ll be interesting to see if Tumblr shows any interest in getting these sorts of things resolved.

  • Testing with Siri

    This is a test using Siri in the official tumblr app on my iPhone. I’ll do a more in-depth review of the app later, but so far, it seems very accessible. Of course with Siri, it’s possible to dictate posts and that’s just awesome.

  • My Rediscovery of Tumblr

    In my quest to find the perfect blogging platform, perfect for me anyway, I think I’ve tried every platform out there. The problem has always been that as soon as I find a great solution, it changes and alas I need to start all over again. This is rather frustrating as I don’t want peoples’ first impressions of my blog to be, “oh, he’s changed to yet another system? again?”

    A while ago, Tumblr was one of the blogging services that had me rather jazzed. I especially liked the fact that in addition to logging, Tumblr has a bit of a social component with its ability to “follow” blogs of interest, to “re-blog content,” and much more. I drifted away from Tumblr due to the inaccessibility of its built-in media player. This was a rather large concern of mine given that I like to post short audio clips from time to time; I post audio in the same way others might post photos. I migrated to Posterous which was not only very accessible in terms of content creation/management, but which had multiple, accessible ways to play audio. Posterous has since been acquired by Twitter, however, and I’m starting to have real concerns on where it might be headed.

    To make a long and probably painful story short, I’m going to give Tumblr another try as undoubtedly, a lot has changed. Over the next few days, I plan to post quite a bit to Tumblr, put it through its paces as it were, and figure out if the platform will work for me. I realize that what may work for me might not work for others, but if you’re curious about Tumblr or just want to know some of the obstacles you might face should you choose it as your own platform of choice, I hope you find these posts useful. As always, I appreciate any comments/thoughts/advice.

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