Just this afternoon, Michael Seidel and I did a brief presentation to a group of web designers, outlining a process to better fuse user experience with design and development. The intent of this process is to raise awareness in the value of user experience every step of the way, from the initial wireframing through web site/page creation, and continually even after it is launched.

One key point we made – user experience isn’t one step in the process, to be executed once and checked off. It’s pervasive.

Web accessibility goes hand in hand with user experience. After all, what is accessibility but building experiences that are usable for everybody?

That also means that web accessibility isn’t a checkbox on your to-do list. It isn’t a singular task that you “do” and move on. It’s constant.

It’s something you think about when:

• you are card-sorting the key elements of a web site.
• you build wireframes of the information you’re presenting.
• you consider color contrasts, typography and layout while designing the page.
• you enter every single line of CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Flash, etcetera
• you ask users — disabled and non-disabled — to test out your new web experience and share what works and what doesn’t.

User experience and accessibility aren’t individual tasks at one specific point in time. They are ways of thinking that carry through every aspect necessary to build a web site or page.

Don’t marginalize either by ignoring them or relegating them to one tiny line item in your project.

Tags: user experience, ux, web accessibility, web design

I’m quite happy with how this blog has evolved over the past year and a half.

But I’ve definitely learned that blogging is a challenge on many levels. Making the commitment to post often — but with quality — is harder than you’d think.

As I look back at the first year and a half of this site, I can see my voice has changed…and I think for the better.

When I first started, I felt this need to be more formal and “professional”. I tried to be conversational and casual, but I don’t think I was entirely successful. I also tried to keep a neutral ground of everything, like an impartial reporter just reporting the news (okay, maybe that’s a bad example these days).

Along those lines, I tended to recap news items and headlines too often. I’ve really tried to steer away from doing that, and I think I’ve been successful. I find it infinitely more valuable to express my own opinions, take stands, or share insights I’ve gleaned while reading up on web accessibility.

What’s really driven it home for me is that some of the posts I thought were just random ramblings that would fall flat, like the first “True Tales of Accessibility Ignorance“, resonated the most with people. I got the most retweets on Twitter, and actual comments from readers! And, at least by my own modest standards, my site traffic spiked.

Now, whether a topic is specifically about web accessibility or not, I’m comfortable and confident just expressing opinions – about my journey as a blogger, about my decade plus of experience in web design, about my foray into user experience, about my interest in video games, on and on…

In short, I’ve learned that effective blogging is being yourself. Take a stance on something. Share something compelling. Respond to comments and further the conversation. Say interesting things.

Tags: blogging, web content

I was recently reading a couple articles about some potential accessibility issues within the video game Bioshock 2. The articles point out color contrast issues with an in-game puzzle, that could leave color blind users out in the cold.

Though I knew I’d regret it, I checked out some of the comments after the posts.

Some random snippets:

what really grinds my gears is how all of a sudden the whole world needs to help people to do stuff they are inherently challenged to do. whats next? an adapter to use a wheelchair on the balance board?

from “What BioShock 2’s Hacking Looks Like if You’re Colour Blind“

It amazes me how many people with a defect think that the rest of the world should cater to them.

from “What BioShock 2’s Hacking Looks Like if You’re Colour Blind“

isn’t this like a one armed man moaning about not being able to play golf?

from “What Colorblind Hackers See In BioShock 2“

This is more of a problem for people that are blind. I mean, come on, how are they supposed to play this? They should be catering to blind gamers as well. And what about those born without opposable thumbs. It’s not fair that my manatee can’t play play this game either.

from “Bioshock 2’s No Friend of the Colorblind“

I realize that Internet forums and comment threads have and forever will be peppered (or dominated in some cases) by people who live to get a rise out of people. Some are just plain ignorant; others are just trying to rankle by saying outlandish things. I’ve been around the web world long enough to have seen countless examples of both.

Still, there’s still a lot of voices out who just don’t get it or care. Their worlds aren’t “inconvenienced” by blindness, or deafness, or motor skill impairment.

Is it feasible to make every web site or every video game 100% the same experience for the disabled and non-disabled? Of course not. Is it asking too much to add avenues to them that make the experience better? In a lot of cases, of course not.

From adding captions to providing color blind-friendly color contrasting settings to keyboard equivalents, there are many ways to improve the accessibility of video games, without expecting drastic concessions from the developers.

For web sites, we’ve discussed many times how simple changes can go a long way. Effective alt tags, proper tabbing navigation…the list goes on.

It may amaze the one poster that “people with a defect think that the rest of the world should cater to them,” but I’d like to see if he or she would maintain such a cavalier attitude if a disability struck.

Tags: bioshock 2, color blindness, color contrast, Video Games

As I progress in my advocacy of web accessibility, I’m noticing a sea change in what I consider myself professionally.

For the majority of my career, I’ve considered myself a “web designer”. While I’ve never felt my designs to be the most eye-popping, stunning masterpieces, I inherently put together visuals that are straightforward, clean and effective. Still, web design was my wheelhouse, and the subject of my strongest advocacy. Beautiful designs equalled great web sites.

Though it’s been out there for a few years now, I recently heard the quote from web design and standards luminary Jeffrey Zeldman:
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”

That sentiment is really sticking with me. Decoration.

I’ve been in the web/e-commerce industry for twelve years now. Now more than ever, I’m seeing that design is but a piece to the puzzle of an effective web site. A finished jigsaw puzzle reveals the whole picture; one solitary piece doesn’t.

Content is a key piece.
User experience is a key piece.
Accessibility (or more broadly, well-constructed, semantic markup) is a key piece.

I’ve too often watched content writing, user experience and accessibility get kicked to the curb. This isn’t always intentional — sometimes they get skipped to meet rushed deadlines. Sometimes it’s just ignorance to their value. “Make it beautiful and people will come!”

And so, I’ve seen designs that look absolutely phenomenal…but do not effectively tell me what the site is about. I’ve seen designs with brilliant visuals and sizzle…that are hard to navigate. I’ve listened to marketing folks harp that their site needs to be beautiful and “sexy” (a nauseating word to describe web sites)…but don’t take a single moment to actually listen to their users.

If a site has the greatest aesthetics in the world, but it doesn’t take into account its users, it’s a failure. At the end of the day, people — whether they are disabled or not — want to get where they need to go.

Design will always be part of who I am. But I’m no longer swayed simply by shiny objects and pretty pictures. Something beautiful constructed in Photoshop is great….but it better clearly show what the site is about, have clear-cut navigation, and elements that are important and logical to visitors. And it sure better not throw up obstacles to those with disabilities simply trying to get what they need.

Over the past year, I’ve found myself cutting down on the web design RSS feeds and replacing them with user experience ones. I’m not interested in the latest PhotoShop tips and tutorials. I’ll leave those for others — the most important thing to me now is advocating the union of design, user experience, content and accessibility, not focusing on simply decoration.

Tags: accessibility, content, jeffrey zeldman, user experience, ux, web design

Recently, I was reviewing a couple web sites for accessibility recommendations and noticed something that’s starting to become a pet peeve.

Links were only identifiable by being a different color from the content around them. They weren’t bolded or underlined. A link was, for example, blue, amidst copy that was black.

This can cause significant problems for those with certain types of color blindness or vision limitations that prevent them from seeing certain colors. If you take color out of the equation, there is absolutely no way to visually identify which parts of these pages are links.

I think it can be confusing even for people with full vision, especially if the same color chosen for links is also used for other stylistic reasons.

It seemed like it was fashionable in the design world a few years ago to get away from the tried-and-true underlining of links. Even today there’s a fair number of sites who just have links as a different color.

If you’re dead set against using underlines for whatever design reason, at least make links a different color AND bolded so there’s differentiation between the rest of the content. Just make sure you don’t use bold for other, non-linking elements then.

It’s a time-honored expectation for links to be underlined on the Web — except in very few cases, I don’t think keeping it that way messes up too many awesome designs.

Some Tools For Testing Color:

Tags: links, user experience, ux