I found out about a most useful tool today that can be used if you want to list the files in a folder and put them in a spreadsheet or something, when auditing websites. I’ve just done this for a folder with over 30,000 files in and it was super quick.
Go to Start > run > cmd
In the command prompt type
dir/a/b c:\foldername > c:\temp.txt
This creates a txt file called temp the root of your c drive and lists all the files in the specifed file.
My thought for the day: A clear set of agreed business objectives is crucial to the success for any website. It is an essential part of the user centred design process not a separate activity.
I came across this excellent article http://boagworld.com/design/combating-design-by-committee and thought it was worth sharing. I think ‘design by committee’ is every web manager/designers nightmare. I particularly agree with the bit about 1-2-1 interviews being more effective. Group sessions need to be very carefully managed and I have seen a few get out of control and way off the point.
Here are some quick thoughts on the positioning of common elements on a web page:
The above highlights the most common areas of placement for particular elements on a website. As such users expect to see them there. Following these design trends helps users feel comfortable/familiar with how to use the website and allows them to get on with their desired task.
A call to action within text is stronger than graphical ads, as people ignore anything they think looks like an advertisement.
A home button should be on all pages except the homepage somewhere on the top left of the screen. A link home from the logo should also exist but is not enough on its own.
If items are given an equal visual weight, their order isn’t that important. A good example is the role based IA on the http://www.hfea.gov.uk/ website.
Lastly… wireframes always make a page look far busier than it will be in a designed version.
It is widely acknowledged that accessibility complements usability and there are very few examples where they conflict. But I have found one…
The national lottery results checker available on their website used to work really well for me. It used to move focus to the next field once you had input your number for the current field automatically. I’d have my ticket in my left hand while inputting with my right – it was a real annoyance to move my right hand to the left side of keyboard to tab across or worse change focus by using the mouse. Due to accessibility guidelines this has now been changed so that there is no automatic change of focus – you have to activate the change by pressing tab or click. So I feel I have quite an awkward experience.
There must be a solution that works well for both. The WCAG 2 guidelines 3.2 says you have to make web pages appear and operate in predictable ways and I think the preference is for the user to activate any change, which is perfectly feasible for search controls or dropdown selection boxes. However, thinking about how many will use this control it may be appropriate to follow the alternative advice stated in the success criteria, if an onchange event occurs is there an explanation of what will happen when the control is changed available prior to the controls activation.
My solution therefore is to ensure that the user is informed that the control will change focus once they have entered a valid number for a field. This therefore meets the guidelines and works for me. Does this work well in practice for people using screen readers or alternative technologies? I would be glad to get any thoughts on this.
I thought I’d try and summarise the key benefits of good web accessibility here:
The financial benefits:
The technology benefits
The user benefits
The legal benefits
Hello, I’m currently developing my new website, that will be all be up and running very soon. In the meantime be sure to enjoy my blog section.