<\/p>\n
Every day\u2019s a school day<\/span>, but here are <\/span>the five<\/span> favourite<\/span> things I\u2019ve learnt so far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been lucky enough to do what I love (write) for most of my working life. But, I\u2019ll admit, it wasn\u2019t until I joined the University and the Content team that accessibility became a daily consideration. From a commitment to using plain English and alt text for images to working up screen-reader-friendly data tables and considering heading hierarchies and colour contrast (to name just a handful of examples), accessibility is a broad and fascinating subject.<\/p>\n Brilliantly, applying accessibility best practices benefits everyone. With an accessible web page, language is clear and direct, flows logically and is easy to navigate. Getting it right is satisfying but also an ongoing process. You never stop learning.<\/span><\/p>\n Working on accessibility inevitably means spending time considering how others might experience the world differently from you, too. And that\u2019s an incredible gift. There is zero downside to learning how to improve the accessibility of content, and I\u2019m immensely grateful for that.<\/span><\/li>\n When I first arrived on the team, I noticed \u2013 among a bunch of posters and printouts on the walls \u2013 an image of Star Trek TNG\u2019s Lieutenant Commander Data with the words \u2018Make decisions based on data\u2019. Coming freshly from a commercial marketing background, I appreciated the peak geeky pun more than the weight of the principle at the time.<\/p>\n One year on, I see those words in a very different light. \u2018Make decisions based on data\u2019 is one of our Digital Principles and, along with \u2018Start with people\u2019s needs\u2019, it underpins every task we undertake. If we\u2019re not researching best practices in a new area or benchmarking our existing content (and our competitors\u2019), we\u2019re referring to our last discovery report and running fresh analytics. And only once we have the data to prove the wisdom of our trajectory do we start creating, updating, or deleting content.<\/span><\/li>\n To be perfectly honest, this is applicable to a lot more than content creation. However, I\u2019ve been struck by just how often it rings true since I\u2019ve been in the Content Team.<\/p>\n Reframing it, the teachable moment here is, to trust your instincts. True, sometimes you really are too close to a piece of work to know whether it\u2019s still (or ever was) good without an external viewpoint. More often than not, though, you know the answer and you just don\u2019t want to acknowledge you need to redirect your efforts. If you find yourself about to ask that question, check in with your instincts first. You\u2019ll be a better writer for it. The more I work with Google Analytics the more I believe in a chaotic and unknowable universe. Stay close to the basic figures and \u2013 for the most part \u2013 it\u2019s possible to draw useful conclusions about who\u2019s visiting your site, when and for how long. Wander away from the fundamentals however and certainties start unravelling at a pace.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s meaning to be found, but discerning human intention and behaviour in dwell times or scroll depths is something more akin to data-assisted clairvoyance than fact-gathering. And, between you and me, I love it! So much so, that I\u2019m almost saddened that the all-new GA4 promises to be much more adept at interpreting humans\u2019 predictably unpredictable behaviour. For now, though, I\u2019ll light another incense cone and stare at that spike in traffic, wondering if a newly announced open day or the waxing of the moon was responsible.<\/li>\n Experience has taught me that calling a group of people working on a set of tasks a team does little or nothing to build one. One year in and I\u2019m delighted to say I\u2019m part of an actual team: talented, smart, collaborative and supportive. They are the reason why even the most challenging of days ends up feeling like an opportunity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every day\u2019s a school day, but here are the five favourite things I\u2019ve learnt so far.\u00a0 Thinking about accessibility benefits everyone I\u2019ve been lucky enough to do what I love (write) for most of my working life. But, I\u2019ll...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1613,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,27],"tags":[25,26,24],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-copywriting","category-digital-life","tag-content","tag-content-writing","tag-copywriting"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/188\/2023\/02\/CupcakeCandle.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1613"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Thinking about accessibility benefits everyone<\/h2>\n
Discovery is so important<\/h2>\n
If you\u2019re asking \u2018does this work?\u2019 you already know the answer<\/h2>\n
\n<\/span><\/li>\nInterpreting Google Analytics is an art, not a science<\/h2>\n
The team is everything<\/h2>\n