About Us

Patrick J. Lynch

Pat is an author, illustrator, photographer, and artist. Pat retired from Yale University after 45 years as an interactive media designer, medical illustrator, biomedical and scientific photographer, video producer, and for the past 30 years a director of media and communications departments, and a designer of interactive multimedia teaching, training, and informational software and web sites.

Pat has won over 35 national and international awards for his medical illustration, publications, and software design, including a 2012 National Outdoor Book Award, the 2005 Pirelli INTERNETional Awards for Best Overall multimedia teaching site, and best site from higher education, the 1992 Best-in-Show Award from the Health Sciences Communications Association and a Gold Medal, Silver Medal and Award of Excellence in the international INVISION Multimedia Awards.

Pat has authored and illustrated eight books, and over 100 professional papers, magazine articles, and book chapters. He has been a consultant and invited speaker on web design and web communications issues to many universities, government agencies, corporations, and non-profits groups, and regularly does talks, workshops, and professional papers on communications management, biocommunications, academic computing, medical illustration, biomedical visualization, and web strategy and production management.

In 2017 Yale University Press published his latest book, A Field Guide to Long Island Sound, a comprehensive guide to the environmental history, natural environments, plants, and animals of the Sound.

In 2012 Yale University Press published A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico, co-authored with Noble S. Proctor. In 2012 the Guide won the National Outdoor Book Award for field guidebooks. Previous National Outdoor Book Award winners include Farley Mowat, Robert Michael Pyle, David Attenborough, Roderick Nash, Richard Bangs, and Aldo Leopold.

In January 2016 Yale University Press published the fourth edition of the best-selling Web Style Guide, co-authored with user experience and accessibility expert Sarah Horton, User Experience Strategy Lead at the Paciello Group. With over 225,000 copies of previous editions in print the Web Style Guide is one of Yale University Press’s best-selling books, and the Guide has been translated into nine international editions, including Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and several Spanish-language editions. Reviewer Edward Tufte called the book “a style guide for the interface with real long-run value,” and the New York Times called the Web Style Guide “an Elements of Style for the Web.”

In 2005 Yale University Press published A Field Guide to North Atlantic Wildlife, which Pat co-authored and illustrated with his frequent collaborator Noble S. Proctor. This classic field guide contains over 100 full-color plates illustrated by Pat of over 300 species of ocean wildlife.

His book Manual of Ornithology, co-authored with Noble S. Proctor of Southern Connecticut State University, was published by Yale University Press in 1993. The Manual has won several national awards for editorial and design excellence, and is one of the most widely used texts in undergraduate and graduate ornithology courses.

You can contact Pat at patrlynch1@gmail.com.

Sarah Horton

Sarah is an independent consultant, helping organizations create “born accessible” technology. She is also an author of books, articles, and papers on designing technology to improve quality of life.

Sarah spent 20 years working in technology and higher education. She started at the Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media, creating award-winning interactive instructional software. She was an instructional technologist at Dartmouth College for 11 years before becoming Director of Web Strategy and Design, responsible for planning and developing Dartmouth’s digital environment and leading the web team. She then joined Harvard University as Web Strategy Project Lead, responsible for strategy and user experience design for the Harvard Web Publishing Initiative.

In 2013, Sarah left higher education to focus on digital accessibility. She joined The Paciello Group as Director of User Experience and Design, leading efforts to build the consultancy’s user research and user experience design services. She transitioned to the role of Strategy Lead, guiding organizations on their digital accessibility journey. During her seven years with TPG, she performed design reviews and audits of websites, applications, apps, and devices, conducted user research and usability studies, and represented the company in improvement initiatives such as Teach Access and the Silver Taskforce.

Sarah is co-author with Patrick Lynch of Web Style Guide, now in its fourth edition and translated into more than eight languages. She also wrote Web Teaching Guide, which won the American Association of Publishers award for the Best Book in Computer Science in 2000. Sarah’s third book, Access by Design, combines the disciplines of universal design, accessibility, and usability into guidelines for designing websites that are universally usable. A Web for Everyone: Designing Accessible User Experiences, with Whitney Quesenbery, was published in 2014 by Rosenfeld Media.

Sarah’s publication and presentation credits also include the New York Times, Peachpit, and Digital Web Magazine, and the International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A), WebVisions, World Usability Day, and the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory Annual Symposium. Sarah has been member of the Web Accessibility Initiative, and consulted for the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and the World Health Organization.

You can contact Sarah at sarah.horton@gmail.com.