Category: usability

AccessU West 2011

AccessU West

AccessU West 2011 is a Knowbility training event January 10-12, 2011 at San Jose State University. There are two days of sessions, with a full day of post conference workshops that go even more in depth with accessibility information.

AccessU West offers classes on how to make electronic information technology accessible to everyone – including people with disabilities.

  • Does your organization believe the web should empower ALL people?
  • Do you want to learn how accessibility ties into your usability goals?
  • Are you a developer or designer who wants to understand emerging best design practices for the web?
  • Do you want to build innovative AND accessible websites using cutting-edge CSS techniques?
  • Is your company ready to comply with the pending expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act that will ensure people with disabilities have full access to the Internet and television?

There’s a Design/Development Track featuring about 30 classes for people creating content, software, web sites and multimedia. I’m an instructor in this track, along with others like Glenda Sims, Sean Keegan, W. Mei Fang, and Kelsey Ruger.  I’ll be teaching HTML5 and Accessibility. My class is a 3 hour, hands-on, lab session.

The Policy and Administration Track is for administrators, managers and policy makers. There are 8 classes in this track.

The Specialized Usability Track is for anyone who would like to make sure that their sites are not just accessible, but also usable. This track emphasizes usability techniques you can use informally, at minimal cost, to get started quickly and easily.

The post conference day features either a full day with Derek Featherstone, a full day on universal design for learning, or a usability testing day.

You can register now. Knowbility training for accessibility is the best you can get. Go get some.

A Rant on the Future of News

As far as I’m concerned lately, the future of news is print. At least a page of print will hold still so you can read it.

Online news sites are afflicted with a jumping disorder, a downloading disorder, and a hell-no-you-can’t-scroll-till-I-say-so disorder.

The page jumps around as it’s downloading. If you are lucky enough to spot a link to whatever it is you want to read, you can’t click on it because it will move the second you click and you’ll end up with something you don’t want instead.

The home pages of news sites have mega kilobyte images which download at a snail’s pace. Once they finally download, everything jumps again. Heaven know what other tracking crap and advertiser crap is downloading in secret at the same time, making it all run even slower.

And while and this jumping and slow downloading is going on, you have no control over the page. You can’t scroll in hopes of reading the rest of something or finding something you want. If you try to scroll nothing happens until suddenly you jump down the page to far beyond where you wanted to go.

What the hell kind of user experience are online news sites foisting off on us? Give it to me on something static. Like a sheet of paper.

Useful links: student web conference, transparent borders, usability, app developers, getting started

The 2011 Student Web Conference is in January and it’s free. Students need to attend this, instructors and web educators need to be supporting the event and speaking at it. This is a great thing! Hooray to Zac Gordon for getting this conference going. (And next year there will be women in the speakers list, right, Zac? Because you’ll know where the women in web education are: Twitter List.)

Transparent Borders with background-clip at CSS Tricks explains a very attractive design option.

10 Usability Tips Based on Research Studies at Six Revisions is an excellent article. Anyone working on creating web pages should memorize it.

5 Tips for Aspiring Web App Developers from Mashable is terrific advice.

$100 Off Ladies Who Launch Seattle. Here’s a discount on a conference for women entrepreneurs.

Useful Links: 28 HTML5 Features, Longdesc, Gender & Usability, Net Neutrality

28 HTML5 Features, Tips, and Techniques you Must Know is an excellent list from Jeffrey Way.

Longdesc may be dropped from the HTML5 spec. Right now it’s in the “let’s argue about it” phase. WebAxe has a discussion by podcast with some folks who examine the issue. The Fate of Longdesc in HTML5.

What’s the fate of the “longdesc” attribute in HTML5? Can or should the “aria-labelledby” ARIA attribute replace it? These are some of the controversial issues discussed by Dennis and guests John Foliot (@johnfoliot), Everett Zufelt (@ezufelt), and Joe Dolson (@joedolson).

Gender Differences in Web Usability. I was fine with this report, until I got to the part about the woman wanting a pink tab.

ReadWriteWeb has a good infographic about net neutrality.

Optimize your writing for users with impaired vision

Users with screen reader devices will scan and skim your web page in a manner somewhat similar to the way a visual user will. Screen readers can be programmed to read only headings, subheadings and links. When something of interest pops out from this “skimming” process, the user can stop and have all the information in a particular section of the page read completely.

The first step is to write meaningful headings and subheadings that contain important words and phrases. The first paragraph under each heading should clarify what the section of the page content is about.

Next, make sure that link text is informative. Link text should give users some idea what they will find when they click. Link text like “here” or “click here” is not informative. The link text in this example is descriptive and informative: Google is trying a similar thing with HTML5 Rocks. It’s obvious that a click will take the user to HTML5 Rocks.

Finally, write alt text that gives an alternative description of the content or function of an image. For example, in book reviews such as the recent one of Mobile Design and Development, the alt text for the image of the book cover is “get Mobile Design and Development at Amazon.” While it does not say that the image is a book cover, it does tell the user what happens if the image is clicked–functional alt text.

These tips are best practice for all users. Optimizing your writing for users who are surfing your page with their ears will improve your page for users who are scanning the page visually, too. Like many practices that have been adopted as accessibility requirements, good writing benefits all users, not just those with visual impairments.

Useful links: Usability, graphic design, HTML5 Rocks

The You-Don’t-Matter Website is a look at usability and accessibility for some large brands.

Graphic Design Theory: 50 Resources and Articles is from noupe.

Apple’s attempt to wow the world with HTML5 flopped. Now Google is trying a similar thing with HTML5 Rocks. There are tutorials, Chrome developer tools, and the promise that the material in the playground and presentations is open source. Let’s see if Google can do it right.

Now Available! InterACT with Web Standards: A Holistic Approach to Web Design

InterACT with Web Standards coverInterACT with Web Standards: a Holistic Approach to Web Design is available today.

This announcement is a BIG DEAL.

This book puts everything you need to teach a class in web design or development with web standards into your hands. The book is easy to use in connection with InterACT’s 17 courses in 6 learning tracks making it the perfect tool and resource for teaching or learning contemporary web design best practices.

If you are a student who wants to learn about building a web site with web standards, this book will lead you there.

For educators, your semester will be a snap to plan with this book. It’s all right there for you.

The book is published by New Riders (2010). There are 10 authors. The major contributor being Chris Mills, with additional expertise from Erin Anderson, Virginia DeBolt, Derek Featherstone, Lars Gunther, Denise Jacobs, Leslie-Jensen-Inman, Christopher Schmitt, Glenda Sims and Aarron Walter. I’m really proud to have been a small part of making the book a reality, because I think the book is going to be very important to students and teachers who are looking for the a reliable resource for web design best practices.

In addition to the writers, a number of other people worked to bring this book to life. They include Aarron Walter as project manager, Patrick Lauke as technical editor, Jeff Riley as development editor, Leslie Jensen-Inman as creative director and Jessi Taylor as book and site designer.

Many kudos go to Leslie Jensen-Inman and Jessi Taylor. When you see this book and hold it in your hands you will realize what a work of art it is from a design and typography point of view. It’s a beautiful book.

Take a look at the table of contents:

  1. InterACT
  2. Tools
  3. Learning on the Web
  4. Internet Fundamentals
  5. Writing for the Web
  6. Information Architecture Intro
  7. Site Planning
  8. Content Analysis
  9. Content Strategy
  10. HTML Intro
  11. CSS Intro
  12. <head>
  13. Headings and Paragraphs
  14. Whitespace
  15. Links
  16. Images
  17. Lists
  18. Tables
  19. Forms
  20. Floats
  21. Positioning
  22. Accessibility Intro
  23. Accessibility Helps
  24. Accessibility Testing
  25. Bringing it All Together
  26. Index

The InterACT with Web Standards book site has everything you need to know. There, you’ll find links to purchase the book, links to code examples from the book, links to bonus content, and links to the sample project. The site has links to information about InterACT, OWEA, and the Web Standards Project. You can take a peek inside the book, read some reviews, grab links to all the resources cited in the book, and MUCH MORE.

Buy now and take advantage of this limited time offer tweeted by @waspinteract.

InterACT With Web Standards, the first book from The Web Standards Project, is out. Save 35% on it with code INTERACT. http://cot.ag/9RS4rEMon May 17 16:00:20 via CoTweetWaSP InterAct
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