Hello!You've reached belwerks.
I'm Stephen Belyea
I am a front end developer with a heavy focus on accessibility, performance, and user interaction for any device or screen size. I like crafting experiences that anyone can use and I'll put in the effort to make sure they're able to do so easily.
A developer since 2012, I started in a LAMP stack, with a primary focus on WordPress. After some time in .NET, AngularJS, and early experience with TypeScript, I've settled into a modern JavaScript framework world. Most of my time has been in React, with projects in Angular and Vue to round out the framework trio. Jumping into new tech is a great way to learn and discover all the best and less-best parts of everything.
Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn opens in new tab if you’re in Kitchener and want to grab some coffee. Thanks for stopping by!
Werds and werks
Explore my writing, prototyping, tinkering, and assorted thoughts I've jumbled together.
When I wrote about being a recovering political junkie a couple of weeks ago, I briefly touched on the little convoy of trucks still heading for Ottawa. It is fair to say that in the days since then, things have escalated.
Remember that (Canadian) federal election last year? It’s ok if you don’t. We all had bigger things to deal with that made it tough to muster any excitement for the political game. I remember it for one main reason...
We're getting into that summer weather, finally, without another 0-degree day in the forecast for the next few months. Summer signals a few important things every year.
YouTube can be, and mostly is, awful. I'm not talking about the general proliferation of unboxing, reaction, or livestream videos. Those are very much not my thing, but a lot of people enjoy them and they're mostly harmless.
A couple of years back, I quit Twitter. I'd been on it since 2011 and had built a decent-sized community of web developers, accessibility advocates, political progressives, and a health mix of friends and previous co-workers.
This year has been an active one for me when it comes to writing. I've been publishing across four different blog platforms, including some paid.
I recently subscribed to Shudder, the streaming video service for horror fans, and it helped remind me of one key aspect of my being: I friggin' love horror movies. By the numbers, it is absolutely my favourite genre.
In the last post I wrote, I mentioned my great-grandfather, Monte Chase, and his habit of signing his own books in the author's name
I buy a lot (read: far, far too many) of used books. It doesn't take much to convince myself I'm supporting small local used bookstores.
I love writing CSS. SASS is fun, LESS is (or was?) too, but to me, nothing beats making magic with plain old vanilla CSS. I will happily write to a style.css file any day...
Part three of my trilogy of posts on “why is accessibility important?” is now available to read. I'm happy with the way I closed it off, and even happier I took the time to rewrite my initial draft (partly why it's been a month since part two).
In October, it will have been four years since my wife and I packed up our lives, our dog, our cat, and our son to leave Toronto for good and move to Kitchener. There’s a lot to love about this city, and I’m happy we made the move.
Got something fun in the mail today. I ordered it from eBay on my birthday, as a gift to myself to help with writing.
Finally, here's the second of three doses on why accessibility is important. Part two is here to look at accessibility as a term and the people who benefit from it being applied
Part one of a 3-part post answering the most frequent question I hear in relation to accessibility during my career is live today on the HealthHub Design blog.
The design team I'm a part of at HealthHub is pretty cool, if you'll excuse a bit of pride. We are intentionally setup as a cross-disciplinary team in all the best ways.