Visually Challenged Users and Need for a Universally Accessible Web Site

Visually impaired people suffer from no faults of their own. This is quite worthy of consideration that a little more efforts toward adoption of certain features in your web site can help them retrieve information in the desired manner. Their ease of accessibility to your web site will not go unrewarded; they can well augment your business interests by turning into your most valuable customers.

Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Universal Usability

Working to Improve the Civic Experience

What has UPA done to encourage more useable and accessible government? Quite a lot, it turns out. UPA supports efforts to improve the usability of elections, support plain language, and remove barriers to civic access for people with disabilities through an alphabet soup of projects and events.

Scott, Josephine. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Government

Year II and Growing: A Report from the STC Special Needs Committee: The Nature of Deafness  

Deaf persons are not a monolithic group. Persons born deaf or who become deaf before learning the language of their environment (prelingual deafness) have a significant educational challenge as well as a communication challenge. Other deaf persons have a communication challenge. Deaf persons may be divided into five categories. For the purposes of this paper the categories are prelingual deafness, prelingual hard-of-hearing, postlingual deafness, postlingual hard-of-hearing, and presbyacusis. (oldage deafness) Each of these categories are discussed in detail including the characteristics of persons within the categories, and the nature of the problems they encounter.

Malcolm, Andrew. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Audio

デジタルデバイド：3 つのステージ

経済的要因による格差は、たいした問題ではないが、ユーザビリティと活用性の格差は、膨大な数の人たちをインターネットの潜在的利益から引き離している。

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2006). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Online

Manual for Apple VoiceOver in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Apple’s screen reader, VoiceOver, comes bundled with Mac OS X (yes, it’s free) and has received a number of updates in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The updates include a new voice, Braille support, and improved navigation and searching.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Macintosh

Introduction to Screen Readers

Begins by showing us the core functionality of screen readers and how they interact with the desktop. In the second part it demonstrates how a blind user may use them to explore and understand web sites, how sites are “linearized”, and how using semantic markup to build sites supports accessible navigation and usability.

Tsaran, Victor. Yahoo (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Universal Usability

Introduction to Screen Magnifiers

Karo Caran and Victor Tsaran show how the screen magnifier ZoomText is used to make the computer desktop and web sites readable to people with reduced vision.

Caran, Karo and Victor Tsaran. Yahoo (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Universal Usability

Understanding Disabilities when Designing a Website

This article will explain some simple techniques which, if incorporated into the design of a website, will enhance its accessibility and usability for people who have a vision, hearing, physical, cognitive, or learning disability.

Tomlinson, Leona. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Secret Benefits of Accessibility Part 1: Increased Usability

Web accessibility has so many benefits that I really do wonder why such a large number of Websites have such diabolically bad accessibility. One of the main benefits is increased usability, which, according to usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, can increase the sales/conversion rate of a Website by 100%, and traffic by 150%.

Moss, Trenton. SitePoint (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Seven Screen Reader Usability Tips

Simply ensuring that your Website is accessible to screen reader users is, unfortunately, not enough to guarantee that these users can find what they're looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner. Even if your site is accessible to screen reader users, its usability could be so poor that they needn't have bothered stooping by in the first place.

Moss, Trenton. SitePoint (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Speaking ALT Text

I have a few late model screen readers and I also have simple audio recording tools. I'll use them to get you closer to what these screen readers actually say. I'll start a collection of recordings so you can hear for yourself what these tools say.

Easton, Bob. Access Matters (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Another –ability: Accessibility Primer for Usability Specialists

This paper discusses in depth the relationship between accessibility and usability in product design. It presents a definition of accessibility and introduces the concept of ‘usable accessibility.’

Henry, Shawn Lawton. UIaccess (2002). Articles>Accessibility>Usability

Analysis Phase

It is most effective and efficient to incorporate accessibility from the very beginning of a project. When accessibility is only addressed late in product design, it can be very costly to make required design changes. Incorporating accessibility early in the project increases the potential positive design impact, and decreases the time and money required to design accessible products. This chapter provides information on setting usability goals, user analysis, workflow analysis and understanding accessibility issues.

UIaccess (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Usable Accessibility: Making Web Sites Work Well for People with Disabilities

When people talk about both usability and accessibility, it is often to point out how they differ. Accessibility often gets pigeon-holed as simply making sure there are no barriers to access for screen readers or other assistive technology, without regard to usability, while usability usually targets everyone who uses a site or product, without considering people who have disabilities. In fact, the concept of usability often seems to exclude people with disabilities, as though just access is all they are entitled to. What about creating a good user experience for people with disabilities—going beyond making a Web site merely accessible to make it truly usable for them?

Quesenbery, Whitney. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Back To Basics: How Poor Usability Effects Accessibility

In recent user testing with a range of participants including Visually Impaired (VIP) and Blind users we found that the majority of problems were common across all groups. However the effect of poor usability is more severe for users with visual disabilities. Surprisingly all of the issues are very familiar and are easy to fix so we thought we’d revisit some of the basics of accessible web design.

Frontend Infocentre (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

New Accessibility Guidelines Part II: Operability

The concept behind website operability is simple: Can everybody use the tools and mechanisms required to operate your website? Operability may seem easy, but it can be very challenging. Every control, every link, and every button on your site is a potential point of failure for operability. Without appropriate consideration for the disabled, you run the risk that disabled users will be unable to access your site.

Dolson, Joseph C. Practical eCommerce (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Usability Spotter #5: HP Laptop Touch Pads with Scroll Zones- Absence of Tactile Cue

Summary The issue with HP laptops that have a touch pad with a scroll zone contained it (as shown in image A) is that they do not provide a tactile cue for the user to help interpret what section of the touch pad the finger is positioned at. In the absence of a tactile cue, it is difficult for the user to determine whether the finger is on touch pad or the scroll zone without looking at it, resulting in the accidental scrolling on the screen when actually the user simply wants to move the cursor. The issue and multiple solutions are discussed ahead.

Rautela, Abhay. Cone Trees (2009). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>User Centered Design

Inclusive Design, Part 2

Accessibility is not something to be left to specialists hired to clean up our mess at the end. It should be a priority of the entire development team from the beginning. Yes, companies should definitely have accessibility people on-board, but they should act as much as educators and coaches as designers. Everyone on the development team must be aware of and responsive to the full spectrum of identified users if your product is to sell to the widest possible audience. That’s the only way to achieve inclusive design.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Usability>Universal Usability

Inclusive Design, Part 1

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be disabled? Well, you better start thinking about it! As my collegue Gregg Vanderheiden is fond of pointing out, 'We all will have disabilities eventually, unless we die first.'

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Usability>Universal Usability

Baby Boomers May Drive Accessibility

The millions in America who navigate the world with a physical disability are poised to receive a lot of company over the next 20 years. The Baby Boomer generation is about to flood the population and promises to create a future in which centenarians are not at all unusual. With increased longevity comes more frequent occurrence of disabilities, thus demanding increased attention to making accessible technology more widely available.

Patterson, Darby. Simply Raydeen (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Usability>Elderly