Monthly Archives

 

Insist on Mediocrity!

There is an alarming trend in the art and design. Not in the artists and craftsmen, but in the clients.  The trend is, an insistence on mediocrity.  It is often an attempt to make something universally appealing. I honestly don't think that's possible. Both fine art and good design can evoke emotion, often strong emotion.  You have to realize though, that they induce both positive emotional responses, and negative ones.  Some people like them very much, but others will dislike them.  The only way to eliminate this negative response group is to lower or eliminate the emotional impact. This can only result in mediocrity. Let's consider this in terms of color. Can you name an intense, universally appealing color? The answer is no, you can't. Some people will love red, while others will hate it. Want to make it more universally appealing? Dilute the emotional response, by diluting the color.  Diluting and mixing the colors won't get a universally appealing color though. It will get you beige. The solution? Don't try for universally appealing. Try to please you. Not a personal design, but a design that appeals to you personally. Like red? Then use it. While you can't make something universally appealing, you can make it appealing. Don't be afraid to make a statement, even if it isn't a strong one. Concerned about that negative response? It is something to keep in mind, but don't let that fear define the design.  The only way to rule out the possibility of a negative emotional response, is to remove any chance of an emotional response. That path leads to emotional beige, it leads to mediocrity. Don't go down that path, don't insist on mediocrity.

Posted on Saturday April 25, 2009
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Jim Thatcher and WhiteHouse.gov

Jim Thatcher has written what I hope will be the first of a series on the Accessibility of the White House Web Site. About a month ago I wrote a quick accessibility note about the new recovery.gov site. A pretty site, but not particularly accessible. As I summed it up then, "I see this site as a wonderful opportunity... missed." I wasn't pleased with my initial mechanical testing of recovery.gov, but I haven't had the time to follow up. Fortunately, Jim Thatcher has now taken the time do a quick audit of WhiteHouse.gov. It looks like the White House site isn't any more accessible than the Recovery site appears to be. The two sites share the same problems with the skip links, and the same poor use of headings. Serious accessibility issues with simple solutions. Another opportunity missed.

Posted on Wednesday April 22, 2009
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9 Ways to Make Your Site More Accessible

The obvious followup question to 9 Reasons Why Accessibility Matters is "How do I do that?" It's not really as difficult as it might seem. Answer these nine questions, and see how your site's accessibility can be improved.

  1. Can you navigate your site easily? Are links and navigation obvious and intuitive? Look at it as if you'd never seen it before, would you understand how to get around quickly? Are your links visible or invisible?
  2. Does your site use skip links? It should. This allows members of your audience to quickly jump over blocks of content to get to what they came for. This will benefit keyboard only navigation, various accessibility tools, and readers who use magnification or zoom a lot.
  3. How much contrast does your site have? Use something like the Colour Contrast Analyser to see how your site rates. Good contrast can open up your site to people with a wide range of vision issues who otherwise might not otherwise be able to access it.
  4. Is your site valid and standards compliant? A valid and standards compliant site will much more consistently displayed across browsers and accessibility tools. It's not a guarantee, but a good start. Try doing a site test to see where you stand with your site. I use tools like the ones on this list to do this sort of work.
  5. How does your site look without CSS? Does it still make sense? CSS is a very powerful tool, but it can be abused. Screen readers and even your RSS feeds are going to display your site without CSS. If you use CSS to change one type of content to look like another, for instance to make a paragraph look like a unordered list, it's going to still look like a paragraph in your RSS feed.
  6. Did you define your default language in the HTML element of your web page? This simple addition to you code let's people know what language to expect.
  7. Did you define ALT text for your images? ALT, or alternative text, atributes will describe your images to your audience members that aren't viewing your images. Maybe they're using a screen reader, or maybe they just are saving download time while on dial-up. Without ALT text, they might not even notice they missed an important image.
  8. Did you use headings to identify navigation lists? Using a H2-H6 heading before a navigation list will help with screen readers and with keyboard navigation. It helps break up the site into identifiable regions so that navigation is more intuitive. If you don't like the way these headings look, then change their appearance with CSS. This will allow you to keep the appearance you like, but keep the improved navigation too. Update: 52% of screen reader users navigate by headings whenever possible - WebAIM Screen Reader Survey .
  9. Does your H1 heading at least partially match your page title? A simple thing, but it can significantly improve a viewers ability to identify where the are on your site, and to navigate. It also should improve your search engine results.

These items won't guarantee a perfectly accessible site, but they'll move you nine steps in the right direction. If you're interested in discussing how to improve the accessibility of your site, or accessibility in general, leave me a comment. Getting me to discuss accessibility is never a problem. To paraphrase Shrek, it's getting me to shut up that's the trick. Update: Thank you to Aankhen for checking my work.  Both of the errors you caught should now be corrected.

Posted on Thursday April 09, 2009
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9 Reasons Why Accessibility Matters

Why does making your site accessible matter? First let’s give a definition of accessibility, I like Jim Thatcher’s best. “Basically, technology is accessible if it can be used as effectively by people with disabilities as by those without.”

  1. 12.8 percent of adults (21-64) are disabled in some way. Bjelland, M.J., Erickson, W. A., Lee, C. G. (2008, November 8). Disability Statistics from the American Community Survey (ACS). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics (StatsRRTC). Retrieved April 7, 2009 from www.disabilitystatistics.org
  2. 8 to 12% of males of European origin have a color deficiency. Accessibility and the Web
  3. 5.5 million people have obstructed vision because of cataracts. - Statistics on Blindness and Blinding Diseases in the United States
  4. 4.2 million people have impaired vision because of corneal dystrophies. - Statistics on Blindness and Blinding Diseases in the United States
  5. Worldwide, 42 million people are blind. - Statistics on Blindness and Blinding Diseases in the United States
  6. Approximately 17 percent (36 million) of American adults report some degree of hearing loss - NIDCD Health Information
  7. Only 1 out of 5 people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually wears one - NIDCD Health Information
  8. 5% of people have javascript turned off - W3 Schools
  9. Internet Explorer 6 still has a 17% browser share - W3 Schools

Using IE6 isn't a disability, but it does fall into the realm of accessibility. Choices you make on your site platform and design can limit who has access to your site. Identify your links with only color? Did you eliminate 12% of the male population from seeing those links? Use sound without captions? Did you just remove 36 million Americans from your viewing audience? How many people do you remove from your audience if your site requires the use of a mouse and not just a keyboard? These all add up, and they add up quickly. Each accessibility problem you have removes people from your audience. Maybe the real reason that you haven't become a famous blogger is that the right people just haven't been able to see your site yet.

Interested in 9 Ways to Make Your Site More Accessible?

Posted on Tuesday April 07, 2009
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Build a Better Blog

It is Day 1 of: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.  If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Regardless of how long you've been blogging, you'll learn something new here.

Posted on Tuesday April 07, 2009
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