Functioning Form - User Experience Diagrams

From Functioning Form

Functioning Form is where art and technology emerge as experience, where message and medium meld, and where interactions are useful, usable, and enjoyable. Functioning Form is the interface.

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Conference Proceedings - Designing for the 21st Century III

From designfor21st.org conference procedings
By Bob Rega, Macromedia

"Web Accessibility and Web Design are two disciplines with a common theory and divergent practices. Both endeavors rely on a standard set of techniques to ensure a consistent experience of data and content across a diverse set of end users. Both rely on creative individuals to build and deliver great sites and great experiences that have an impact on the user. Both seek to extend the reach of the end user and link individuals together to form a stronger collective whole. However, despite the common theory that links them, web accessibility and web design do not share a common set of practices. Sites hailed for their accessibility are rarely noted for their design. Sites hailed for their design are rarely noteworthy as models of accessibility. Few sites are ever held up as models of both great accessibility and great design."

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Integrated Web Design: The Meaning of Semantics (Take I)

Found on molly.com
From informit.com

If you haven't heard of or don't know much about the sematic web this article by Molly Holzschlag (molly.com) is a good place to start your quest for knowledge.

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Zen of CSS Design, The: Visual Enlightenment for the Web

Co authored by Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag (molly.com) this book is a must for standard-compliant designers who are looking for way to design engaging visual user interfaces.

For all of you traditional graphic designers doing work on the web keep in mind that a web site's design is more than a pretty layout....it's a user interface, so don't think that just because you have extensive graphic design experience or a degree or anything else that "qualifies" you it is impossible to simply translate your existing skill set to the webspace and design effective and usable web sites. You must learn new design theories that will allow you to adopt your existing skill set to the websphere.

Zen of CSS Design, The: Visual Enlightenment for the Web - $29.99

The Accessibility Challenge

Found on alt tags

A story from the trenches.

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Accessibility Features in Adobe Reader 7

Found on WebAIM

PDF files are nortorious for lack of accessibility. Even worse, many college and university professors (and even administrative assistants) think that converted Word files to PDF files is the quick and easiest way to post content to the web. Well it is, but it is also not the best way. Since Section 508 became law manufacturers have scrambled to incorporate accessibility hooks into their products. PDF files are still a pain to make accessibility but with version 7 of Acrobat Reader out things will be a bit easier. Now if we can just get people to make to actually use these new features to create accessible PDFs!

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Prioritize Usability Testing and Web Analytics

Found on Column Two
From Clickz.com
By Bryan Eisenberg | February 18, 2005

If you've performed usability tests and tried to reconcile those results with your current site metrics, you've probably been left scratching your head. Usability respondents find something wrong on a particular page, yet the same "problem" isn't evident in the site analytics.

This leaves you with a rather big question: How do you justify Web analytics and usability, and what role does each play in the conversion equation?

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Information Architecture as an Extension of Web Design

Found on InfoDesign
From Digital Web Magazine

"(...) the line between Web design and information architecture doesn't have to be as clear as we may have imagined. There are many opportunities for Web designers to fill the role of information architect in every project. This is not to say that information architects are no longer needed. On the contrary, with Web sites becoming more dynamic and complex every day, information architects are needed more than ever. But as an information architect who transitioned from a Web design role, I can assure you that information architects aren't the only ones who can organize things." (Joshua Kaufman - Digital Web Magazine) - The recurring theme of structure and presentation, of cognition and perception, or of architecture and design.

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So Where are all the Information Designers?

Found on InfoDesign
From Online-Learning.com

"Over time, we believe that this combination of skills will become the norm and may even become mandatory for many Information Design positions. Given the current economic climate, employers are already demanding more from their prospective new hires. As evidence of this trend, look at the career section in your local newspaper and you will see that employers are now asking for combination skill sets for many jobs. Companies are looking for people who can simultaneously write, design and develop websites. With a small amount of cross-training, many of today's Information Designers could position themselves for these multi-skilled jobs." (Online Learning)

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Web Analytics: The Voice of Users in Information Architecture Projects

Found on InfoDesign
From Hurol Inan

"An information architecture project will uncover the very heart of internal politics in any organisation. In most cases, content owners, department heads and product managers all fight for prime 'real estate' and prominence within the website structure - resulting in a site design that looks like a 'truce' rather than an effective solution." (Hurol Inan) - courtesy of digital web magazine.

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Seven Common Usability Mistakes

Jared M. Spool has written an article which highlights seven common usability testing mistakes. These are:

• Do You Know Why You're Testing?
• Not Bringing the Team Together
• Not Recruiting the Right Participants
• Not Designing the Right Tasks
• Not Facilitating the Test Effectively
• Not Planning How You'll Disseminate the Results
• Not Iterating to Test Potential Solutions

Information Architecture Exercises

Found on Column Two
From Poor But Happy

Peter Van Dijck has posted a collection of ideas for information architecture exercises, to use during a workshop. To quote:

I am preparing some information architecture workshops, and I’m collecting various types of exercises. I've managed to identify some general rules for developing workshop exercises as well.

To add to these suggestions, in our IA Fundamentals workshops (running in Canberra and Sydney), we base the day around the design of a mock "snowfields website". Using this type of example, we can then construct examples around:

• brainstorming the types of visitors to this site (thereby introducing personas)
• types of tasks they might want to complete (task analysis)
• types of information required (content modeling)
• overall structure for the site (card sorting)
• confirming the final design (card-based classification evaluation)

It makes for a fun day, and the use of a single site throughout the day makes it both concrete and easy to explore IA concepts and techniques...

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Role of design and usability

Found on Column Two
From OK/Cancel

Tom Chi has written an article that provides an interesting perspective on the role of design and usability in a project. It even has diagrams! To quote:

If our process is too usability heavy, we are not able to explore the space widely enough. The testing prematurely optimizes on a region and we end up doing many design tweaks, but comparatively few significant changes.

If our process is too design heavy, we can zip all around the space, but there's no way to know when to stop. A designer might hit a workable solution and iterate right past it. There is also no way to know which directions to prune, so we use up design time on failing directions, and this can cause our team to optimize too late.

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The Guild of Accessible Web Designers

A world-wide association of organisations and accessible web designers and developers - designed to both promote and protect standards - not technical standards - but accessible design standards.

"Promoting a vision of the future that assumes accessible web design to be, relevant, obtainable, and not at odds with successfull business practice or good visual and usable design."

Join now if you are an accessible web designer or developer, or a supporter of accessible web design.

http://www.gawds.org/

Selling Standards the Sweet Way

Found on: The Web Standards Project
Feb 23, 2005

If you find yourself having to explain for the umpteenth time to a client why building web pages to web standards is a good thing, you might feel a trifle annoyed. Trifle, you say? Aha, now there's the answer! So, let Andy Clarke explain what his dessert-based explanation is all about - Web Standards Trifle.

WebAIM.org

WebAIM.org, an incredible site for web accessibility-related information has an RSS feed.
(http://rss.webaim.org/webaim.xml). At a minimum you should bookmark the site (www.webaim.org) for future use. It is a must-have online resource.

Accessibility Features in Dreamweaver

From Webaim.org
Author: Jared Smith
Date: September 2004

Dreamweaver MX, developed by Macromedia, is one of the most popular and powerful Web development applications available today. Macromedia has greatly improved the accessibility features of Dreamweaver MX over previous versions. MX and MX 2004 now allow developers to be prompted when inserting certain Web elements that may need accessibility attributes added to them. Dreamweaver includes many new tools, features, and reference materials to help developers in developing accessible Web content.

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Developing with Web Standards: Recommendations and Best Practices

By PJB on Technology

"This document explains how and why using web standards will let you build websites in a way that saves time and money for the developer and provides a better experience for the visitor. Also discussed are other methods, guidelines and best practices that will help produce high-quality websites that are accessible to as many as possible." (Roger Johansson - 456 Berea Street)

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Why XHTML with CSS matters

From youcansleepwhenyouredead.com
January 22, 2005

The IE/Netscape browser war is over, and most web users are using standards-compliant browsers like Firefox, Safari, and IE 6. The old table-based layout techniques are no longer necessary.

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The new breed of "anti-design" websites

From youcansleepwhenyouredead.com
January 05, 2005

Maybe it started with craigslist, google or maybe ebay. Or if we go way back, it could have been unix itself, but 2004's most popular sites have a nearly "anti-design" approach to online site branding. Gmail, Flickr, del.icio.us, and 43things are conspicuously devoid of design, yet are intensely popular because they focus on speed and serviceability.

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PubSub: "web accessibility" feed

I have a search feed on PubSub for web accessibility. I'm getting some good results from it and it's already becoming a lot to post all the great stuff I find. So I decided to provide you with the RSS URL so you can individually watch it.

PubSub: web accessibility search feed | http://rss.pubsub.com/52/26/a00cf513230118a76d8afdf9bf.xml

LIFT Text Transcoder is not the answer

When it comes to accessibility LIFT text-transcoder should be considered a component of a solution (if considered at all) and not the answer to being accessible and 508 compliant. As far as I'm concerned LIFTs text-transcoder only gives you a printer-friendly page...IT IS NOT A REPAIR TOOL! The text transcoder can not add ALT text when there is no text; it can't make poor ALT tag syntax (ex. photo) better (ex. photo: headshot of Bill Gates).

Basically, with the text-transcoder you are going to get a linearized version of the page with the same acccessibility hurdles and roadblocks that existed before. Think I'm mistaken? Read this post from alttags.com about the Sacramento County website and it's use of LIFT text-transcoder.

Do You Care About Accessibility? | 3/31/2004

Free Usability Toolkit

The AIfIA Tools project aims to disseminate new IA tools from the community in order to learn from each other. Below you will find document templates, process map posters and other tools to help you in your practice. The documents have been donated by the community, by people just like you.

One of the items posted is the Usability Toolkit from the Society for Technical Communication.

Another item of interest was Case Study: Digital Web Redesign. Christina Wodtke produced this set of deliverables--personas, conceptual model, site map and wireframes--for the Digital Web redesign in 2002.

Digital Web Redesign (3.3 MB)

Full text of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (1st edition)

O'Rielly has generously published the full text of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. (Note that this is the 1st edition of the book, and the 2nd edition has been substantially enhanced, expanded and improved.)

Ground Up, Accessibility

From The Web Standards Project

In a Digital Web Magazine article this past week, a W3C web accessibility specialist Matt May offers up a short primer for web designers. The article, Accessibility From The Ground Up, gives a quick overview and answers key questions regarding accessible web design.

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Key steps in creating your reader persona

By Gerry McGovern
February 07, 2005

The first step in developing successful reader personas is to decide what readers you are not going to focus on. Good web management is often more about what you exclude than what you include.

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alttags.org

Add these to your quiver of information:

• Accessibility
  
• Content Management
  
• Reports
  
• Section 508
  
• Tips & Tutorials
  
• Usability
  
• Web Standards
  

Emotional Design: People & Things

From jnd.org

"(...) I proposed a framework for analyzing products in a holistic way to include their attractiveness, their behavior, and the image they present to the user -- and of the owner. In this work on design, these different aspects of a product were identified with different levels of processing by people: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. These three levels translate into three different kinds of design. Visceral design refers primarily to that initial impact, to its appearance. Behavioral design is about look and feel -- the total experience of using a product. And reflection is about ones thoughts afterwards, how it makes one feel, the image it portrays, the message it tells others about the owner's taste." (Donald Norman)

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Meet the MasterMinds: Common Sense Web Design with Steve Krug

From MCNews

"When you watch a lot of people use web sites (which is what usability experts do), you realize that even minor things that are left unclear or ambiguous often lead users astray and keep them from succeeding at whatever they're trying to do on the site." (Management Consulting News) - courtesy of webword.

Steve Krug, the author of Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, is a highly respected usability consultant, and he has worked with companies like Apple, Netscape, AOL, BarnesandNoble.com, Excite@Home, and Circle.com. Krug's book is packed with practical techniques for developing a highly usable web site. Before you create or redesign your web site, make sure your designer has read Krug's book.

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InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

http://www.informationdesign.org/

ROI Is Not a Silver Bullet: Five Actionable Steps for Valuing User Experience Design

By Scott Hirsch | July 20, 2004

For years now, the “ROI of User Experience” has been sought as a means to justify larger corporate investments in web design. Although ROI methodology can be a useful tool for prioritizing possible web development projects, by itself ROI is not the answer to building a stronger user experience design competency. Read more...

Scott Hirsch is a consultant specializing in project finance and development processes.

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act

From: WATS.ca News
November 11, 2004

The Province of Ontario proposes new legislation to better address accessibility for people with disabilities. Read more...

A Different Web Accessibility Primer

From WATS.ca News
2004-11-24T22:21:00-05:00

by Derek Featherstone

Summary: Web accessibility is just as much about philosophy as it is technical knowledge. A balance of both is needed to ensure that your web sites are as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. Read more...

UXCentric - a blog worth mentioning

UXCentric: news, views and links about user experience, information architecture and all things web

What is WebAbility?

Webability is a phrase that I came up with to be an umbrella term for the various components that must go into any web project to make it successful. As I looked around the web more I found that the term is also used within the context of web accessibility. Makes sense and although I am a huge advocate of web accessibility, within the confines of this part of the blogoshpere webability is my term. And here my term is a catch all for:

• usability
• accessibility
• sustainability
• scalability
• measureability
• marketability

There are other -bility terms that are out there but they could probably fall under one of these. If you address each of these items from initial project scope development to final product hand-off the site will be a success for client, design team, and end-user.