Thoughts, ideas and solutions on UX, web accessibility and design
Dear David Bowie,
You may be one of my music Heroes, but your new website isn’t so much Rock n Roll Suicide as inclusive design murder. If The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell, your website is leading the way.
People often go a bit wobbly when accessibility is mentioned. Visions of text only websites, monochrome designs and static content swirl in their heads. Teeth are gritted, excuses are prepared, and battle conditions ensue.
The reality is that accessibility is simply a key part of UX. A truly outstanding digital experience is a fusion of accessibility, usability, creativity and technology. The trick is to weave those things together, and to do that successfully there needs to be a cross pollination of skills and expertise.
HTML5 has been in development since 2004, but it was thrust into the limelight when Steve Jobs aired his views on open standards in 2010. HTML5 (and its associated technologies) has now reached a level of maturity that has encouraged organisations to begin adopting it as the basis for key development projects.
There are several business benefits of moving towards a web-platform solution. How much you benefit will depend on the nature of your organisation, but there are several different advantages that may apply.
Why is it that every website seems compelled to include social media buttons these days? More to the point, why do they do it with no thought as to the best place to stick them!
The web is saturated with Portable Document Format (PDF) files. For more than 20 years PDF has been the Defacto standard for print documents on the web. PDF files are also notorious for their lack of accessibility. With legacy PDFs running into the thousands on many websites, just how can you tackle the job of making them accessible?
Is there a need for a professional accessibility society? This is the question being discussed by the accessibility cognoscenti.
Links are like sign posts. They should tell you what you’ll find when you follow them. Writing good link text isn’t difficult, but there are a few things to be aware of when you do.
Apple has made accessibility part of the iOS app SDK. With integrated screen magnification and the VoiceOver screen reader available on all recent iOS devices, it’s an ideal platform for great accessibility.