So, you’d like to know more about me, eh? Right then… Read on for some blurb about me, or there's a short biography.

So, who’s this “dotjay” bloke?

I’m Jon Gibbins, a web developer and accessibility consultant from the UK. I like to think of myself as more of a web engineer. I’ve been working with web technologies since 1997, professionally since 2003.

I’m active advocate for accessible web sites. I love being part of the accessibility community and feeling like the work we do actually helps people. I’m a moderator on Accessify Forum, which has been helping web designers with accessibility since 2003. I’m also an active member of the Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS), helping the Guild where I can and discussing the latest web accessibility issues with fellow web developers.

The name “dotjay” is derived from a nickname I had while at university, where I studied for my Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering with Music Technology Systems.

I am currently interface and application developer at Grow Collective, a web design co-operative based in Bristol.

What’s this site then?

dotjay.co.uk is my personal site, where I get to play with some experiments or rant about things on my blog. Besides that, it is somewhere I can pull together the little bits of me that lie sprawled across the Internet into something a little more coherent. It is a creative outlet. It is my online laboratory. It is somewhere I can stay in touch with friends, and maybe make a few new ones.

What do you blog about?

Most blogs have a theme of some sort. Up to now, my blog has generally contained random musings while occasionally touching on interface design issues, with specific focus on accessibility.

Recently, my ramblings have become more diverse, so I began tagging my posts and categorising my feeds to allow people more choice over which of my posts they follow. However, the feeds are a little knackered at the moment, so please bear with me while I iron out some wrinkles.

Why accessibility?

Living in an inclusive environment is just the way things should be, but that’s often not the way of the world, or the Internet. Often it seems that, for whatever reason, disability and accessibility get overlooked or ignored. For me, accessibility inspires thought and innovation and it has become a challenge and a passion. I hope that promoting discussion of accessibility will instil this in others.

How do I contact you?

In the interests of keeping spam to a minimum, I don’t normally publish e-mail addresses, but if you want to get in touch, feel free to string some words together and send to dotjay at this domain.

Credits

Thanks to Jon Tan for creative input. Photos by fairyJo, Patrick H. Lauke and myself, dotjay.