Without both, it’s very difficult to have a successful online business. Unusable web sites have an incredible ability to generate a lack of trust in the business — as soon as one feature fails to work correctly, or doesn’t behave as you expect, there’s an immediate connection made: “If they can’t get this right, what else might they have problems with?” Will they lose your financial data? Will they ship you the right product? Will they bill you the right […]
Continue reading “Usability and Trust” »Author: Joe Dolson
Usability Issues with Domain Management
Working as a web developer, I find myself dealing with a lot of different domain registrars, hosting services, etc. It’s inevitable. It’s also not the slightest bit uncommon to run across one very specific usability inconvenience with how these services manage their services. (Not all of them — but enough that it’s irritating.) This specific problem is that when you’re managing domains, some of these services handle multiple-domain management in the following manner: Select the action you wish to perform. […]
Continue reading “Usability Issues with Domain Management” »Alternative Text for Significant Images
In the comments from my most recent article, “Supporting Standards that Support Accessibility,” a number of interesting thoughts were raised concerning the requirement (or lack thereof) of the alt attribute in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) 5. It’s a difficult issue. I’ve seen numerous articles around the web which discuss the fact that HTML 5 does not require the alt attribute. To some degree, this is true: HTML 5 provides exclusions to the requirement. In situations where an image is significant […]
Continue reading “Alternative Text for Significant Images” »Google Toolbar ties to the Windows Accessibility API
Quietly released on the Saturday before Christmas, (what, are they trying to hide this news?) Google announced that their latest Toolbar release supports the Windows Accessibility API (Application Programming Interface). This is (obviously) a Windows-specific release, and even further, it’s just an Internet Explorer release. However, it’s definitely a step in the right direction! I was particularly glad to see the comment: Version 5 comes as a part of our ongoing efforts to enhance accessibility in our client-side and web […]
Continue reading “Google Toolbar ties to the Windows Accessibility API” »Supporting Standards that Support Accessibility
The justification that a web site is accessible because it “follows standards” contains a serious fallacy. Specifically, the assumption that standards support accessibility. One root of current standard accessibility practice is conformance to the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) or XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language – HTML reformulated as XML (eXtensible Markup Language)) standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)). This is a fine practice, and certainly should be maintained. Using correct syntax and following […]
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