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+date = 2023-01-03
+title = "Recent Website Changes"
+description = "A retrospective of recent changes to my website."
++++
+
+## The State of This Website
+
+Over the years, this website has changed URLs, styles, content focus,
+and much more. However, it seems that I am never done, as I am yet again
+changing this page to fit my current needs and wants.
+
+While this site was already minimal (\~12kb), it contained a lot of
+disorganized content and some poorly chosen color schemes.
+
+The recent updates attempt to fix these items while focusing on what I
+truly care about here: the content within each page.
+
+## Recent Changes
+
+I've made quite a few changes to the style of this website today, both
+in the CSS and in the HTML.
+
+Here are some of the key takeaways from today's changes:
+
+1.  Reduce the width of the website from `60em` to
+    `40em`.
+2.  Remove breadcrumb navigation and replaced with a simple "Return
+    Home" link when visiting anything other than the homepage.
+3.  Remove syntax highlighting from code blocks. CSS now loads from a
+    single file.
+4.  Move blog posts on the homepage to the top, pushing tertiary content
+    down.
+5.  Update font-family from `monospace` to
+    `sans-serif` for readability.
+
+## Future Focus
+
+### Accessibility
+
+My main focus amidst all the changes this past year was accessibility. I
+tried to improve the accessibility of all pages on this site as well as
+I know how. For example, I added aria labels to identify different
+navigation menus in November.
+
+I want to continue this in 2023 and learn more about the accessibility
+features I can utilize to help those who may need them.
+
+### Content First
+
+Beyond accessibility, I am making a concerted effort to bring the
+content of this site to the forefront and push the tertiary information
+(e.g., About Me, Services, etc.) down below the content.
+
+Further, I want to review and edit previous blog posts for grammar,
+accuracy, dead links, and more. Where necessary, I may even add a blurb
+at the top of old posts that are no longer accurate or helpful.
+
+### Style
+
+As always, I will be searching for ways to reduce distractions and bring
+a minimalistic approach to this site. While there are certainly more
+drastic measures I could take, such as making this a [Shinobi
+Website](https://shinobi.bt.ht) or a [No CSS
+Website](https://nocss.club), I prefer to keep some modern features
+here.
+
+Two ideas have been floating around in my head, but I am not sure how I
+feel about these approaches yet:
+
+1.  Going all-in with Emacs org-mode and creating a script to
+    auto-publish all my blog posts from org-mode to plain HTML files and
+    then letting my CSS style it after the fact.
+2.  Focus on publishing for Gemini or Gopher and then utilize a
+    conversion program to translate the pages to HTML.
+
+## Looking Back
+
+As I sit here and finalize the changes, as well as this post, I am happy
+with the current state of this website. It's certainly a long way from
+my first attempts (parallax background images, anyone?) and it's good
+to see the progress.
+
+I can only hope and work hard to ensure that I make more meaningful
+progress by this time next year.