What are captions?Everybody’s using YouTube. Government departments, media corporations and individuals with bright ideas all broadcast themselves. YouTube might be everywhere, but is your content reaching everyone? Knowing about audio description, captions and transcripts, is the way to reach an even wider audience. In the third of a series of articles on multimedia accessibility, we take a [...]
Accessible Twitter: Advancement through technologyEver wondered what “Vorsprung durch technik” means? If you remember the Audi adverts in the UK from the 1990s, you’ll know it stands for excellent design and precision engineering. It actually translates as “Advancement through technology”, a concept that neatly sums up Dennis Lembree’s work on Accessible Twitter.
The Design Patterns of Social MediaMost websites nowadays incorporate some kind of community aspect which allows users to provide feedback to the site’s owners and to each other. In fact, ‘building community’ is one of the most important aspects of any modern website. Websites that focus on their community or group nature are described as being social sites, an umbrella term that can cover a great number of disparate services. This article will describe how Developers can utilise social design patterns on a site in order to promote or dull certain behaviours in an online community.
Social media and accessibilityIn recent years social media and User Generated Content (UGC) have engulfed the online experience. Both can trace their heritage back to the emergence of Web 2.0.
Social Media: Use it wiselyThe web provides masses of opportunities to facilitate engagement, social interaction, communication and community building but which ones are relevant for your site? Despite rumours of ‘facebook fatigue’ social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo still attract millions of visitors a month and time spent using Twitter is on the increase (complete.com). More and more sites are integrating their own social features or linking into the functionality on these sites. Some functionality can be relatively simple to incorporate, such as ‘share this’ links. Others such as forums can require considerable planning and development. Whatever the method adopted the aim is to increase the ‘fun’ and interactive impact of your site, to both draw the user in and encourage them to return. So…is it worth jumping on the bandwagon?
Compelling Social DesignWith the success of social websites being so widely reported in the media, more and more companies are feeling pressured to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon.
But will mashups, tagging and blogs really lead to a good experience for your users? Will you see a return on your investment? And if you are implementing Web 2.0 features in your website, how can you encourage users to participate?
The danger in over-reaching‘Web 3.0.’ ‘Content aggregation.’ ‘Mashups.’ Another day of technology news, another chance to jump on the latest website bandwagon. But for many companies, a more successful strategy lies much closer to home. Improve the usability of your website’s core offerings and you can dramatically increase website traffic, and ultimately revenue.
Whether you are at the stage of thinking about creating a new website, or have an existing website that has been in operation for many years, usability is crucial to providing your users with an engaging and enjoyable user experience.
