Since I live in WordPress, I’ve heard about Easy Digital Downloads by Pippin Williamson a lot. He’s a prolific plugin author who contributes in a huge way to the WordPress community with both his plugins and the tutorials he writes, both for free and cost.
I’ve been pondering the idea of putting together some guides for WordPress that focus on performing tasks with accessibility in mind. I will still publish free tutorials on this site, but would also like to write more in-depth material.
So I took Easy Digital Downloads for a spin yesterday. I wrote a plugin that I thought would be useful and put up a post about it. As part of the work for that post, I tested Easy Digital Downloads.
The documentation promises that it’s easy. It is indeed that. But what pleasantly surprised me is that along with the ease comes accessibility. I was able to configure every option using a screen reader for the plugin, and I didn’t have to perform any crazy maneuvers to get it working. Given everything the plugin can do, I was a little worried that accessibility would have been compromised. I’m glad that I found that not to be the case.
If you’re a blind businessperson selling products that are digital, like music or ebooks, and you’re also running WordPress, give Easy Digital Downloads a spin.
Thanks Pippin. This is how you do accessible user experience. I’ll be buying extensions.
Shameless kiss-up: I love Genesis Office Hours. I think it’s one of the best WordPress podcasts out there, not least because it deals with the Genesis framework, which I also love.
What Is Genesis Office Hours?
Genesis Office Hours is a podcast hosted by Carrie Dils, a designer and developer using the Genesis framework. Along with designing and developing sites for cost, she provides a lot of tutorials for Genesis, showing users and other developers and designers how to get Genesis child themes to go beyond their original designs and functionality. On top of that, she hosts Genesis Office Hours, which is a podcast featuring interviews and tips from others in the Genesis community, along with the opportunity for users to ask questions and have them answered by the guest hosts and herself.
Note: I’m not going to get any money for this post, nor have I been featured on the show. I have, however, chatted up Genesis a lot, especially to my students, and I really do believe this is one of the best Genesis podcasts they, and you, could spend your time listening to.
Anyway, back to what it is. Carrie has feature guest hosts ranging from small business owners to some of the folks from Studio Press itself, and everyone’s been amazingly helpful and more than willing to share what they know. Not that this doesn’t happen with the rest of the WordPress community. But Genesis is my favorite framework, so I’m focusing on that.
Can I Watch?
Of course you can! That’s what I’m trying to get you to do after all, right? If you click on the link to Carrie’s site above, and then click on the Genesis Office Hours page, you can watch all past episodes. You can also submit your questions via the Twitter hashtag #gohchat. And here’s a helpful link to a post where Carrie gives you a bit of behind-the-scenes action. And be sure to read Carrie’s blog where she posts the show notes along with her other tutorials.
I hope that Genesis Office Hours will become a regular addition to your list of resources. It’s always great to have those to rely on.