Usability & Accessibility - Mindset Then Methodology V1.0

www.gapingvoid.com

mind set then method ology

What I want you to do

Site Visitors

Give feedback.

Poor service is not to be put up with.

Site Owners/Designers/Builders

Get out of your head and into the world of your customer. Then do your thing.

Throughout history, the winners have been the businesses that understand who their customers are, communicate with them, and make their wants and needs an integral part of their business.

Michael Wilson, CEO - there.com

Simple , clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behaviour. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behaviour. Dee Hock

Customer-centric

From the customer’s perspective

their needs & concerns

Task focussed

they come to your site to do something

Could be to get information

Conversational

a flow of implicit and explicit questions and responses

Other-centric

Organisation

Products & Services

Technology

Design

The Brand

Content

The “go fetch” model We throw up some content. You go fetch it.

Where are these sites centred? the customer products & services the organisation

How many customer-centric? Org/Product Customer

13,200 pixels 1,680 pixels

Usability & Accessibility Accessible Usable Web Site Accessible does not mean equally unusable for everyone. There is some overlap between usability and accessibility. If it’s not usable, it won’t be accessible (to anyone).

Usability vs. Accessibility Plan/Design/Build: Accessible is boring/LCD. Usability tested. Result: People with impairments frustrated. Plan/Design/Build: Both integral through the complete process. Fully tested. Result: Maximum reach. Plan/Design/Build: No planning. Not tested. Result: May look pretty, may satisfy a niche audience. Generally useless. Plan/Design Build: Accessibility bolted on after. Result: Compliant, theoretically OK Accessible Usable

Accessibility Myths

Accessibility only benefits blind or vision-impaired users.

Accessibility means sites are dull and boring

Building an accessible site is expensive

People should view a web site the way the designer intended

Keep to text-only

Speed of task completion Deaf Blind Low vision Mobility Reading 4 million careful owners     Beehive      Bioethics Council    Community Net     Companies Office    Department of Labour     Embassies     Employment Relations Service    Ministry for the Environment     GCSB     Good Practice Funding   Government Jobs  

Speed of Completion = Satisfaction

Accessing a site with impairments

Getting into their world. We can’t really know – but these ideas may help in understanding.

Deaf – your site is in a foreign language with some recognisable words

Blind – your site pages are accessed in a linear fashion from top to bottom

There are some facilities to skip forward/backward

Low vision – your screen is 320x240 resolution with perhaps poor colour and fuzzy

Mobility impaired – you must “tab” to the link or form field you want

Reading impaired – some recognisable and unrecognisable words – hard to follow and process

Some principles

Listen – understand – then put yourself in their place

Not everyone is the same

Determine the audiences

Understand the important differences

Tame your magpie – and your graphics designers

It’s all about do’s

Speed of task completion = satisfaction

Customers don’t care about you or your site

They care about themselves

You are a service provider

Don’t overestimate the knowledge/skill of your customers

The common “branding” myth

An organisation’s brand is:

Its logo

Its visual identity

Its branding statement, definition, …

The brand is really:

The perception in the mind of the customer .

The visual identity helps shape that perception.

The site usability is shapes it even more.

Some actions

Deal with the politics early

stakeholders tend to be stakeholder-centric

Establish a (documented) site charter

this lays down the objectives and can be referenced against for design decisions

Branding – slave or master?

it has its place – keep it there

Don’t be a bore – create a conversation

Customers don’t care about your website or your organisation. They care about themselves . Show them you care about them and then they’ll start to care about you.

Let’s build a site