Using JAWS to Evaluate Web Accessibility

This article is designed to help users who are new to JAWS learn the basic controls for testing web content, and to serve as a reference for the occasional JAWS user.

WebAIM (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Assessment

Testování Přístupnosti Webových Stránek se Screenreaderem JAWS

Tento článek je českou verzí článku Using JAWS to Evaluate Web Accessibility. V textu jsou zmiňovány prvky stránky, které jsou součástí struktury webu WebAIM.org a nemusí se vyskytovat na stránce s touto verzí.

WebAIM (2005). (Czech) Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Assessment

Usando o Jaws Para Testar Acessibilidade

Este artigo destina-se a ensinar aos usuários não familiarizados com o JAWS os procedimentos básicos necessários a avaliar a acessibilidade do conteúdo web e servir como uma espécie de guia de referência para o usuário ocasional deste programa.

CSS para Webdesign (2005). (Portuguese) Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Assessment

Determining Readability: Readability and its Implications for Web Content Accessibility

One area of accessibility often overlooked is the readability of the content of your web pages. Not every user may be familiar with terms or terminology being used. Others may not have the same socio-political background, literacy skills or capacity to fully comprehend what it is you are saying. One goal of the content author then is to try and identify their target audience, and then ensures that they are not "writing over their heads".

WATS.ca (2006). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Assessment

Toys 'R' Rushed: A Cautionary Tale

Website critic Lou Rosenfeld is shopping for a baby present, but the website he's using is making his task tougher than it should be. Lou takes on www.toysrus.com.

Rosenfeld, Louis. CIO Magazine (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Assessment

Intranet Communication vs. Traditional Communication

A way to measure return on investment (ROI) for your intranet is to answer two basic questions. How does the intranet increase the level and quality of communication? How does it replace traditional forms of communication? To develop such an ROI model, you need to be clear on the current level and type of communication within your organization.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2002). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Assessment

Quantitatively Test the Effectiveness of Your Home Page

Staff should be able to confidently, quickly and accurately step from the home page of the intranet towards the information they require. If staff can’t achieve this without resorting to search, the home page needs to be redesigned. This article explains a quick and effective technique for assessing whether your home page is an effective gateway to site content.

Barker, Iain. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Assessment

Laatua Verkkoon: Quality Criteria

The quality criteria are intended to act as a tool for developing and assessing public web services. The purpose of the quality criteria is: to act as a tool for developing and assessing public web services; to improve the quality of public web services for both users and producers; to increase the benefits from public web services.

Suomi.fi (2008). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Scandinavia

Web Application Solutions: A Designer’s Guide  

Web Application Solutions is a guide that helps designers, product managers, and business owners evaluate some of the most popular Web application presentation layer solutions available today. We compare each solution through consistent criteria (deployment & reach, user interactions, processing, interface components & customization, back-end integration, future proofing, staffing & cost, unique features) and provide an overview, set of examples, and references for each.

Wroblewski, Luke. Functioning Form (2005). Articles>Web Design>Assessment

The User Experience of Enterprise Software Matters

I can’t tell you how many frustratingly unusable enterprise Web applications I’ve encountered during my 12 plus years in corporate America. As important as the user experience of enterprise software is to a business’s success, why isn’t its assessment usually a factor in technology selection?

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Assessment

Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site

The Yahoo Exceptional Performance team has identified a number of best practices for making web pages fast. The list includes 34 best practices divided into 7 categories.

Yahoo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Quality>Assessment

Pitfalls of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools

Automated web accessibility evaluation tools are hard to trust, understand and only provides feedback on a small amount of factors that influence accessibility. Also, a unified web evaluation methodology should be adopted to provide consistent results across tools.

Standards Schmandards (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Assessment

Practical .NET Unit Testing  

When the concept of unit testing is presented to a manager or a client managing a project, their reaction is often formed from a naïve understanding of the process. They assume that it has about the same ROI as traditional system testing. Unit tests are absolutely critical to writing complex, reliable software. Try to avoid comparing unit tests with traditional software testing. They are NOT the same thing, and they have dramatically different purposes.

Young, Jason. YTechie (2009). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>ASP

Is Your Web Site Working?

A badly designed and implemented Web site can cost your company more than money. Aside from the obvious costs of having the site developed, which in some cases may be quite a lot of money, a badly designed Web site can give existing and potential customers a negative impression of the company. Therefore, it is essential that your Web site is actually fulfilling its objectives.

Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2001). Articles>Web Design>Assessment

How to Evaluate Your Own Web Site

Is your web site in need of improvement, but you don't really know where to start? Have you changed your web site recently, and want to make sure that it's actually been improved? Now you can perform a professional evaluation of your web site yourself. Here's how.

Content Strategy (2008). Articles>Web Design>Assessment

Measuring Content Strategy: Not a Piece of Cake

Since there was no way to measure the effect of the new content in terms of conversions, it wasn’t really worth doing. And this, my friends, made me sad.

Words Are Delicious (2009). Articles>Web Design>Content Strategy>Assessment

Testing Search for Relevancy and Precision

Despite the fact that site search often receives the most traffic, it’s also the place where the user experience designer bears the least influence. Few tools exist to appraise the quality of the search experience, much less strategize ways to improve it. When it comes to site search, user experience designers are often sidelined like the single person at an old flame’s wedding: Everything seems to be moving along without you, and if you slipped out halfway through, chances are no one would notice. But relevancy testing and precision testing offer hope. These are two tools you can use to analyze and improve the search user experience.

Ferrara, John. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search>Assessment

Beyond Goals: Site Search Analytics from the Bottom Up

While goal-driven analysis is wonderfully useful, we’ll explore a different, “bottom-up” approach that relies on pattern analysis and failure analysis to help you understand your users’ intent in qualitative ways that complement the top-down approach.

Rosenfeld, Louis. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search>Assessment

Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices

To find typographic design patterns that are common in modern Web design and to resolve some common typographic issues, we conducted extensive research on 50 popular websites on which typography matters more than usual (or at least should matter more than usual). We’ve chosen popular newspapers, magazines and blogs as well as various typography-related websites. We’ve carefully analyzed their typography and style sheets and searched for similarities and differences.

Martin, Michael. Smashing (2009). Articles>Web Design>Typography>Assessment

Website Testing Tools

Here is a collection of some testing tools that we have compiled to aid your testing handily grouped into categories. Look out for our reviews of some of these tools coming soon.

Testing Web Sites (2009). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Testing

Online Anonymous Rating Sites: Empowering Individual Voices 

Rating sites empower people to make better choices. Obviously they are subject to abuse (either from the competition, from the the slandered source, or from biased friends). But even in the possible exaggerations from the participants, the ratings raise awareness of issues that you might otherwise not carefully examine.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2007). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Wikis