[Back to Design Exchange Presentation]
Greg Gay M.A.
Technology Transfer Coordinator
Usable Web Environments
- Beyond accessibility standards
- Technical accessibility vs Practical usability
- Usability applies to everyone (i.e. curb cuts)
General Usability Strategies
- Reduce redundancy
(e.g. empty Alt text) - Structure content
(headings and lists) - Direct keyboard access
(Tab, accesskey, bypass links, put your mouse away) - Layout description
(opening table summary, or div title) - Consistency
(templates, headers, footers) - Feedback
(errors, warnings, confirmations) - Accessibility statement
ATutor
http://www.atutor.ca/development/
- Applies to group collaboration / E-learning environments / CMS / Portals etc.
- Keyboard navigation
- Location highlighting
- Resume/Continue link
- Form labelling
(click target & explicit label) - Form Focus
(primary form pages) - Relative sizing (%, em)
- Authoring tool support for accessibility (ATAG)
AChat, ACollab (group communication)
- Synchronous - (chat)
- Auto refresh vs manual refresh
- Top to bottom vs bottom to top
- Keyboard access
- New message announcement
- Asynchronous - (forum, discussion board)
- Structured displays (use headings, lists)
- Search
- Sorting
- New messages/threads to top
- New message announcement