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:: articles - usability & accessibility::
Usability and accessibility are the most important aspects to web design.
Users want to find the information they are looking for - if they don't find it quickly, they will look elsewhere.
The usability and accessibility of your we site will depend on your target audience and the purpose of your site. If you think about usability before starting a new design project, and incorporate it into the design in the development stages, it will both look good and be useable.
usability
There are several elements of usability:
accessibility
Making your web site accessible to everyone, regardless of browser, platform , operating system, plug-in or disability is probably the most important factor to consider when designing a web site. Having an accessible web site, makes using your web site easy for everyone. Ease of use = return visitors.
- Make sure your site is usable on the main browser and versions. Internet Explorer (IE), Netscapre Navigator (NN) and Mozilla Firefox (FF) are the most common browsers in use today
- Make sure your site is usable without requiring the visitor to download a plug-in first
- if necessary make two versions of your site - a high-end version and a low-end version, so that if the user does not have a Flash plug-in, for example, they can still view the HTML version of your site (which should be very close in design to the Flash version)
- Test your site at the development stage to check it works on various operating systems (PC or MAC) and with different browsers/versions (IE, NN & FF)
- Use style sheets to separate style and content - look at the W3C to get the latest versions of style sheet standards
- Do not use deprecated html tags - go to W3C to see what the latest standards for html are
- Use the appropriate html tags to define your text - this enables the blind people to read the text on your site
- Make good use of headings and < strong >
- Always specify alternative text for graphics - <img src="image.gif" width="10" height="10" alt="image description>
- Check the colors you use aren't bad for those with various forms of color blindness
- Don't use color as the only indicator of change (e.g. in a new section)
- Always underline links
- If in doubt - desaturate (make black and white) the design to see if it still makes sense
structure
Good site structure consists of ensuring the following:
- the site navigation is well structured
- there is a site map on the site, which clearly shows the web site hierarchy
- the breadcrumbs trail is visible (so that customers have a visual clue about the page and where it belongs in the web site structure)
- the content of the site is current and updated regularly
- graphics on the site have an associated "alt" tag, to allow all users to access the site elements
- style sheets should be used to give all the web pages a consistent look and feel and to conform with current web standards
- web pages should be categorised in a simple way within the file directory on the local and remote server
navigation
Navigation is the most important aspect of any web site. It helps users find their way around a web site, and shows them where they are and where they can go next within the site. It provides a visual clue and provides the hierarchy of information that can be found. Good navigation reflects good site structure.
The navigation panel is usually found on the left hand side or top of the web site pages. The navigation panel should be consistent on every single page of the web site, should take up as little space as possible and can be made from either text or images.
Breadcrumbs trail should be shown at the top of every page to show users which part of the site the page belongs to and to give a visual clue to the visitor about where they are in relation to the rest of the web site. content
Writing content for the web is very different to writing for print.
- Keep sentence structure as simple as possible
and keep sentences short
- Highlight important words or phrases
- Use bullet points or numbered lists where possible
- Use plenty of headings, subheadings and white space
- Keep the page structure consistent by using style sheets
- Dont use all capitals, as this makes content harder to read
graphics
Graphical images should always have "alt" tags associated with them, to enable all users to access their contents.
- Try to provide textual links to the same information as well as the graphic
- The "border" tag has been depracated as valid html so should not be used in the html code, instead it should be defined in the style sheet - img {border: 0px}
- If image maps are used, textual links should be provided
in addition to the image map
- Client-side image maps are preferable to server-side image maps, as they use html to determine the link "hotspot" and can have alt text defined for each area, this makes it much more user-friendly
- There is a disadvantage to using image maps - it is very difficult for the visitor to see where they have already been in the site
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