Update for Little Sea Bear—the improvement plan

This post is about a planned site update and improvements that are hopefully coming in the future, including more on my disability content to build awareness give news and influence the attitudes towards disabled people. Who knows, maybe the stereotypes can slowly be changed.

I am hoping the update will also be informative to people with disabilities. So there is going to be a big site update based on disability: Helpful information, equipment and tips and tricks.

So, I just thought to let you all know that I am planning to do a big update on my site and want to tell you all what I have planned. I’m not sure if I will convert it onto this blog or link it in. Let’s see.

Explanation

A few years ago I made another website for my A-Level Media coursework called Disabilityisus.weebly.com but have recently took it down because, well, it looked like a kid created it. I was 16 to be fair.

You may have noticed that I play with the layout, the header, the colour schemes on here all the time. This is because I now know that as time goes on, a site starts to look old and outdated.

When I recently visited my old site,  Disability Is Us, it didn’t half look outdated. Nothing but static pages and columns. Blah. It was ugly too.

I mean, how on earth did Disabilityisus get an A? Not that I am complaining it did… I’m grateful that it did, but I think it might struggle if I submitted it again now.

Anyway, back when I was 16-17, it had a purpose I wanted to fulfil. That is:

1. To build awareness
2. Give information on all disability and mental health diversity
3. List aides that may help you or a loved one overcome certain obstacles.
4. Be a blog about my own disability

Change of Web Hosts

However, I used a web-hosting client, Weebly.com because I preferred it’s open source and HTML editing abilities without paying for a plan. The only problem is, I have no idea how to use that stuff… I mean I would happily learn. Templates can be annoying but I didn’t have the time for that.

Like many other “free at the time” things, Weebly has fallen into a black hole known to all as capitalism. And, to be honest, I hadn’t really updated the site for ages. Now when I look back at it, I realised that it is barely usable. The layout is awful; the information scattered and a lot of the free features are no longer free.

Also, the name, Disabilityisus was just rubbish, it would never catch on. Creating Little Sea Bear made me think about it again and those aims I had way back when are still at the back of my mind with some new aims added onto that.

So, what’s happening with Little Sea Bear?

It’s going to take a lot of work, I don’t know how long, maybe a few years but I am hoping it will be worth it. Site updates will include:

• layout improvements
• Alt images
• Informative content

With WordPress, I may be limited with the template but I can focus on the content and at the minute I think that is the most important thing. I have also upgraded to the premium plan which is cheaper than weekly and am able to learn a little coding this way.

Salvaging Content

I want to try and salvage some of the content from my old site. The content needs to vastly be updated and exported to Little Sea Bear and I need help with insight from other disabilities and conditions but I am hoping that in a few years, the blog tab which is now named “Bearing Disability” will include useful information:

• Cooking Equipment
  • Preparation and Serving
• Driving and Travel
  • Blue Badge, Getting a Car, Learning to Drive
• Personal Care Tips & Tricks
  • Making the Bed, Washing
• University support.
  • Transition from College to University
• Your Stories
  • Stories sent in by people with disabilities.

Some more possibilities include:

• Meeting and Greeting
  • The does and don’t of greeting a disabled person
• Changes in the world of Disability
• How disability is viewed.

The tab is there for everyone, disabled or not, to gain valuable information. So I would like your suggestions on what you would like to see. So, if you have a suggestion, let me know. You don’t need to have a disability to have ideas, just the ideas themselves will do.

Broken down text

With my posts averaging around 1000+ words, I am going to start breaking the text down into manageable chunks so that it is easier to read on the phone, tablet and computer.

Hopefully, this makes the site more user-friendly too.

Navigation and Layout Update

So, one of the updates that is coming to Little Sea Bear is a better navigation system. I have split my content into categories and plan to place these categories on the menu bar.

You want to learn about disability, then go to the “Bearing Disability” tab, you want to know about writing? Go to the writing tab.

Not all tabs have a name, but there will eventually be a tab for the following:

• Disability (Bearing Disability)
• Writing
• Book Reviews (Berg’s Book Club)
• Student Life
• Other

Hopefully, this will make it easier to find content.

Want to find a post by author? (an update on post)

I have recently updated this post as we now have a new author on Little Sea Bear. LilyMay. If you know who wrote one of the posts on this blog, you can have a look at the rest of their work by clicking the author’s name in the sidebar. If you are viewing this post on your tablet or mobile device, you can also click the name on top of the post.

The site will be colour coded so that you are easily able to identify the author:

~Shannon

~ LilyMay

~Guest Posts

Alt Images

I have only recently heard about Alt Images. Alt Images are descriptions of an image so that the visually impaired know what the image is a picture of. I plan to change all my images into alt images so that my sight is more user friendly, no matter what your disability is.

If this update goes as planned Little Sea Bear will be a much better site.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment or use the request form and share with friends. You are also free to comment site improvements 

While you are here, why not look at some amazing posts on Little Sea Bear?

~Shannon~

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