Design and Accessibility: Part XV

Website Accessibility Policies

In the previous article, Linda reviewed the legalities and recommendations involved with the standards included in the Section 508, W3C, and the PAS 78. This week, she focuses on the PAS 78 and its recommendation for Website commissioners to include accessibility policies in their Websites. What does this mean for Web designers and developers? What’s included in these policies, when should Websites have these policies in place, and which countries are affected by this recommendation? All these questions are answered here (without copyright infringement on the PAS 78), as Linda talks about the possibilities with examples from sites that already have accessibility policies in place.

Free - Adding Dynamic Data to Your Pages > Making the search results more user friendly

Adding Dynamic Data to Your Pages > Making the search results more user friendly

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Date Created: 2008-08-05

Tutorial # 35   What happens if the search yields no results? Rather than just saying: "Here are your results - 0 records"   We should provide a more user friendly notice. I.E. Sorry, your search did not have any results, please try another search.

Design and Accessibility: Part XIV

W3C, Section 508, & PAS 78: Web Legalities and Standards

Over the past few months, Linda reviewed several points that are included in accessibility standards set forth by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the U.S. Section 508, and the new PAS 78 (Publicly Available Standard) as she covered various accessibility and usability Website problems. In this article, Linda will touch on all three documents, and you’ll learn what each document is about, what it addresses, who is affected by their legislations or recommendations, and the document’s reach outside any particular agency or country. You’ll also learn whether your Website design and/or development – and you by association – are free from any legal claim against an inaccessible site.

Design and Accessibility: Part XIII

Usability: Navigation & Info Stress II

In the previous Design and Accessibility article, Linda explored how Flickr and The Book of Cool used navigation on their home pages through compatible screen resolution, readability, visibility, content, and link structure. These two sites were chosen as they had won the 2006 Webby Awards for Navigation/Structure; however, Linda discovered that both sites neglected to use some usability and accessibility standards in their applications, omissions that could create navigation problems and info stress for some viewers. Now she goes past the homepages in both sites to explain what tools you can use to improve your site’s navigation and how you can avoid the use of what is known as “mystery meat navigation,” (MMN) or the “Where am I?” syndrome in your site construction.

Design and Accessibility: Part XII

Usability: Navigation & Info Stress

In the previous two design and accessibility articles, Linda displayed how colour-blind Internet users view the Web and how designers might compensate for those viewers. Now she turns to an issue that concerns everyone who uses the Internet – Website navigation. Blog designs, Flash, and other formats used for web design, along with operating system and platform issues all determine how a designer or developer deals with navigation within those programs. You’ve seen the results  –  sites that contain an overload of links or – alternately – a dearth of information and a lack of usable structure. How does a designer or developer create navigation that doesn’t create info stress for viewers?  Read on…

Beyond the Woods and into the Minefield

When I wander around the Web these days, I often feel like Goldilocks with three hairy bears behind me. The navigation choices are overwhelming on some sites, and other Web designers don’t offer a clue on how to get around their pages. Will I make the right choice and find what I need? Or, will I click the wrong link and lose my way? I’m supposed to be somewhat skilled in navigating through these woods, so I shudder when I think about the Web navigation experiences relayed to me by some of my computer-illiterate friends. What they experience is way beyond Goldilocks. For them, navigating through some Websites is more like stepping through a minefield.

I’m not going to offer any “bad” navigation examples for this article, because you all know what those Web pages look like and how they (don’t) work. Instead, I’m going to take a peek at the homepages of two of the latest Webby Award Winners to offer examples on what many Web experts and ordinary viewers consider the “best” in navigation and structure.  In the next article I’ll cover more about what’s inside both of these sites. In this article I’ll ask the following questions about the homepages for two sites:

1. What’s the criteria for winning a Webby award for the best navigation and structure?
2. Which Websites won and who designed them?
3. How did the designers use navigation and structure?
4. Which programs and code did the designers use to develop their navigation and structure?
5. How did the winners fail (for me) and why?

Many questions above, many answers below and I hope that something here works for you.

Design and Accessibility: Part XI

Accessibility: Colour-blindness Issues II

In the previous design and accessibility article, Linda explained colour-blindness, including the genetics issue that explains why more men than women suffer from colour deficiencies in their vision. She talked about the four different and most common types of inherited red-green colour-blindness, and used examples to demonstrate how the Web appears to those individuals. In this article, she explores other forms of colour deficiencies, including more inherited colour-blind conditions, more rare colour conditions, and problems created by aging and disease. As in the previous article, Linda offers visual samples on how the Web appears to these individuals. Additionally, she examines what other designers suggest in order to compensate for colour-blindness, and why their suggestions seem too extreme.

Design and Accessibility: Part X

In the previous design and accessibility article, Linda shared how a viewer’s user agent processes forms, and why some processors are better than others from accessibility and usability standpoints. In this article, she moves from behind the Web page to the front, where the colour-blind user might face some problems with Web images. What are these problems, and how can Web designers and/or developers address these issues in their work? Linda first explains colour-blindness and then focuses on red-green colour-blindness in this article – the most common form of inherited colour-blindness. She explains why more men exhibit colour-blindness than women, and she offers examples of how normal viewers and red-green colourblind viewers see the flickr Website. Finally, Linda brings some solutions to the table for Web designers who might want to address this issue.

Design and Accessibility: Part IX

Accessible Form Problems and Solutions II

In the previous design and accessibility article, Linda dissected how accessible and usable forms can be designed for Websites in the HTML and/or XHTML document. In this article, Linda sharpens the difference between Web designers and Web developers, as designers may not always understand the scripting and processing that enables forms to function. To help in this regard, Linda shares how forms are processed by the viewer’s user agent, and why some processors are better than others. She then discusses why the W3C and the PAS-78 (U.K.’s new Publicly Available Specification) currently maintain negative perspectives about developers who use JavaScript applications and – similarly – about designers and clients who insist upon using these applications. To address this negativity, Linda provides fall-back solutions for designers and/or developers who want to continue to use JavaScript as a stand-alone application or as an addition to other technologies like AJAX in their Websites.

Design and Accessibility: Part VIII

Accessible Form Problems and Solutions

In the previous design and accessibility article, Linda illustrated various changes that she made to the Montrose Citizens for Responsible Growth test site to date. The alterations included changes to global structure within the WordPress PHP files and in the accompanying CSS file. In this article, Linda addresses the W3C’s accessibility guidelines for forms and how these guidelines work in some cases and are unnecessary in others. The solutions included in this article provide a means for developers to use dynamic scripts (like PHP and ASP) to make their sites more accessible. She also provides some back-up solutions for developers who want to stick with client-side applications which incorporate programs like AJAX.

Minimal Form Accessibility: W3C Standards and Inherent Problems

The minimal accessibility standards set for any Website HTML forms come from the granddaddy of all Web accessibility standards – the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In their instructions on how to create accessible forms, the W3C discusses six HTML form issues. I adjusted the order of the six directives so that they make more sense (at least to me!). Also please notice that the W3C examples were written for HTML documents only, and the first tip-off to this limitation is indicated by the use of capital letters in the tags. XHTML construction is formulated with all lower-case letters, and the W3C has addressed XHTML/DTD forms in their XHTML forms modules. However, I’ve also included some examples of how to modify the codes below to fit XHTML formats in this article.

Design and Accessibility: Part VII

Usability and Accessibility in Action and Example

In the previous design and accessibility article, Linda explained the use of visible or invisible skip links and access keys as tools to help viewers navigate a Website. The use of these tools, among others, helps a Web designer or developer to create usable and accessible Websites. In this article Linda takes readers back to the Montrose Citizens for Responsible Growth site to illustrate how she’s changed the site’s code and structure to date so that the site is more navigable for all users. This lesson is based on the previous six articles in this series, where usability, accessibility, global structure, and the separation of content, structure, and presentation are addressed. The Montrose site is based on a WordPress blog, but all blog users and Website developers can follow some code examples in this article to make sites more accessible.

Design and Accessibility: Part VI

Navigation and Accessibility Tools

In the previous design and accessibility article, Linda explained why site navigation is similar to graphical and architectural wayfinding. If a user cannot visualize how to navigate through your site, or if you don’t post guidelines and highly visible and consistent signs along the way, the user will become lost and frustrated. Unlike Websites, if a user becomes lost in a building, they must plan how to navigate a way out of the building. Unfortunately, if a user gets lost in your site, all they need to do is navigate to safety is to close the browser window.

In sum, if your site isn’t accessible, then it isn’t navigable. As the U.S. Section 508 demands more attention and with the introduction of the PAS 78 in Great Britain, knowledge of accessibility means that you gain an upper hand in Website-building bidding wars. To that end, Linda expands on content placement and how to find content with skip links and access keys through tips and code examples. If you’re fond of new technologies, like AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML), Linda will also give you fall-back options so that a larger number of viewers can access your site.

Web Forms: Avoiding User Frustration

Web Forms: Avoiding User Frustration

For a user, forms on websites can be a frustrating exercise. They require information they don't want to give. They contain confusing choices. The user is forever unsure as to whether it's even worth filling them in...

By following a few rules of thumb, designers and developers can make things much easier for the people using their forms, and thereby enhance the likelihood that somebody will order form their site or sign up for their service..

In this tutorial we'll look at some methods and techniques to help your produce quality web forms, split across the following areas:

• Clarity
• Flexibility
• Accessibility

and a brief note about another area to consider:

• Legality