Week 6 Reading

Summary:
This week's reading begins by likening usability to common courtesy. Explaining that all users have a certain "reservoir" of goodwill, Krug explains the ways in which it is often depleted by poor usability design (Hiding useful information, demanding strict adherence to a standard from the users, asking for unnecessary information, being intentionally misleading, putting flashy imagery and animation before content, and having an amateurish-looking site), while also explaining that the reservoir is idiosyncratic and situational. While mistakes can deplete it, it can be refilled by doing things like putting important information first, saving the user as many steps as possible, making it easy to recover from errors, and, failing all of that, apologizing for any shortcomings in the site's design, avoidable or not. He then discusses how important designing for accessibility for those with disabilities is to the web, despite many designers' hesitance to do so, typically out of fear of compromising overall design or general laziness. In addition to accessibility being a law in this country, he states it's simply the right thing to do to enrich the lives of others. In the event of the failure of those reasons to force the designer to take another look at accessibility standards, Krug explains how making pages accessible makes them better overall, even to users without disability (For example, ordering things in a hierarchal sense of importance is almost essential for screen-readers, but greatly benefits those who can see as well, as all users scan for information, disability or no). He recommends CSS as the answer to obstacles that would, in the past, make accessible design difficult, and gives tips that can instantly be affected to the HTML of a page to make it more accessible.

Links:
http://www.webnauts.net/accessibility-testing.html
A short article that details reason why designers should attempt to test accessibility with actual users, as opposed to automated tools.

http://wave.webaim.org/
Useful tool that examines and tests any webpage for wide accessibility, with helpful embedded icons and reports.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/quicktips/
A few more tips for making accessible sites.