Sequel to our guidelines for designing accessible website and web applications, we are sharing usability guidelines for web designers and developers.

Before we actually dig into details, let establish a common understating of what usability is. Usability is mostly defined as ‘ease of use’, but this is over-simplification of the art and science of Usability. In a broader sense, usability is “effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which a specified set of users can achieve a specified set of tasks in a particular environment.” – ISO 9241 Standard

Usability is ultimately concerned with the following factors:

Read the rest of this entry »

Done with your latest and the greatest web design?

Do you know that a large number of people in your audience would not be able to view your design as you intended. Imagine how a person with vision deficiency (like color blindness) would experience your website. According to an estimate, among adult computer users of the USA alone, 1 user in 4 has vision difficulty, 1 has dexterity problem and 1 in 5 has hearing problem. By ignoring these users, we not only reduce the number of users but also limit the scope of our products.

Today’s post is all about designing accessible websites/ web applications. Accessibility is the measure of ease with which users with physical disabilities, say visual impairment, can use a product efficiently and perform the required tasks satisfactorily. In other words, accessibility means that every user in his own context can operate a system and get required output without any constraints.

Here, it is very important to understand that many end-users may be using the product in a context that is very different from the context in which it is designed. For example,

• The user may not be able to see, hear, move, or may not be able to process some types of information easily or at all.
• The user may have difficulty reading or comprehending text.
• The user may be colorblind.
• The user may not have or be unable to use a keyboard or mouse.

These and many other contexts should be taken care of when designing or developing a system. The following is a set of basic rules of accessibility that you should understand and comply with when designing websites or web applications.

Use Colors Wisely

Read the rest of this entry »

Simply put, usability is making your website easy for your visitors to find the information they need when they need it.

A common misconception about usability amongst web companies is that usability is expensive. Yes, there are multi-national companies that spend thousands of dollars on usability tests and research, but for an everyday company usability is achievable without the knowledge of usability experts or without expensive equipment for testing.

Web designers have an even easier job to do, just by reading usability articles they can accumulate a fairly good knowledge about usability basics and how to implement them on a website.

1. Include a Tagline

A tagline is a statement or a motto that represents a company’s, or in our case a website’s, philosophy and mission. It should be the most obvious element on a website’s front page and it should clearly describe the website in one phrase.

Read the rest of this entry »