As I mentioned last week, my final project is a book blog on Tumblr called Keeping It Bookish. I plan to make bookish post consisting of reviews, recommendations, thoughts and ramblings, pictures, etc.

This week I have been focusing on the theme of my blog: the color scheme, the layout of my posts, the navigation style, and overall aesthetic. I have chosen to go with earthy tones to create a calming feeling in the user when they visit my blog. I have made my navigation menu a muted plum color that compliments the subtle tea green of my posts. The image I have chosen for my sidebar fits well with these colors, too! I am not sure if I am completely satisfied with the style of my blog, but it will work for now

There are still a couple things I need to figure out within the HTML. The navigation menu on my blog has four icons on the side that have embedded links that take the user to important pages on the site, i.e. the home page; the ask box, where users can ask questions; my Goodreads page; and the reviews page, where all my reviews can be found in one place. Adding a “my posts” page is important, because I want the user to be able to find all of my original content in one place. I have to figure out how to add an icon to the menu with an original icon image. Hopefully, I can find the code for the other icons and copy the same formula.

When thinking about my audience and the reading that we read a couple of weeks ago, I am trying to think about the accessibility of my blog. I want everyone to be able to comfortably use my site. Enlarging the font was the first step I took regarding accessibility, but other steps are proving themselves to be much more difficult to accomplish, especially on Tumblr where the ability to make drastic changes is limited. For example, I’m not sure how enable resizable text or how to make the blog keyboard friendly; however, I am looking into this and will hopefully find a solution.

Keeping It Bookish does display many key elements of accessibility, though. One being the color scheme. The colors of the site were picked not only to be pretty, but also so users can easily see the content. Also, all of the content is easy to access, and there is no confusing dynamic content. To make Keeping It Bookish as accessible as possible, I am going to add Atl Text to any images that I can.

I plan to finish designing the site soon, hopefully by Monday. Next week I aim to focus mostly on preparing the actual content of the site and begin posting. I am looking forward to this process the most!