I love building websites and the craft that goes into making a well performing, accessible and enjoyable website experience. But, far too often, the focus on performance and accessibility is only applied at the tail end of that building process and not focused on too much after all the various requirements have been met, for that point in time.
That would be fine if websites were made from wood or stone, but the environment that websites live within is a constantly evolving ecosystem. New devices are introduced, browsers are updated and changed, new standards are introduced or deprecated, and new technologies emerge while others whither away. Not to mention that depending on the type of site, the content, focus and direction of the site may evolve and change as well. Maintaining and pushing the content and purpose of a website is a challenging task in itself, but doing that while also maintaining the quality, performance and accessibility that it had when it was shiny and new elevates that task to a whole new level of cognitive overload.
Take your pleasure seriously.
Charles Eames
That’s why I’m building Optimize Toolset. I need a set of tools and services that allow me to easily set the standards that I want to achieve with each site that I build, automatically monitor those sites and provide me with detailed reports that let me know how they are doing and where I can improve them. My hope is that these tools and services will help others like myself achieve and exceed the levels they have set for themselves in their work–and play.
Let’s all push the web forward.
Ryan
@ryanhefner