Usability
Usability is becoming a more featured topic in the media again. We seem to learn from the errors and the bancruptcies of the past and focus on what the visitors want rather than what we expect of them. With a web site, we provide a service, which should be catered to those we want to reach. The following articles can be a reminder to keep things simple to make them a success.
Easy as A,B,C - dynamic A to Z indexes - 30th March 2005
A welcome shortcut for visitors on text-heavy websites is an A to Z index of the services offered. Much like the sitemap, it offers a fast way to find what you need on the site. An index is even more user-focused. The sitemap reflects the structure of the site something that is only relevant to visitors when it is badly implemented in the navigation. This article describes how you can make A to Z indexes more interesting and easier to use. (published at devarticles.com)
More Website Knick-Knack - October 2004
This article lists even more web site enhancements and discusses their usefulness. It ends with a list of danger signs to look out for to spot useless knick knack.Local copy of "More Web site Knick Knack" with less page clutter. (published at Devarticles.com)
Website Knick-Knack - September 2004
This article lists a lot of enhancements, that people use on web sites and discusses their usefulness. If you think your site is the cat's pyjamas, check it and you may think different. Local copy of "Web site Knick Knack" with less page clutter. (published at Devarticles.com)
Standards, baby, yeah! - July 2004
Illogically called "Standards Vs. Sensible Design", this article tries to explain why following and advocating standards is great, but not enough. It needs a shift in technical use and in design to make web development a more secure and respected job. If you want to, you can also read the original "director's cut" version with all special effects. (published at Sitepoint.com)
Dynamic Page Elements - Cloak and Dagger Web design - October 2004
Dynamic elements make web pages more fun, more interactive and allow us to make pages more usable - if we have CSS, Javascript and a mouse at our disposal. This article discusses some uses of dynamic page elements with accessibility and usability in mind and shows where they fail and what to do to make them better. Also make sure to check the local copy of this article for updates and less advertisements. (published at devarticles.com)
Accessible Interdependent Select Boxes - May 2003
This article explains how to mimick the funtionality of an interdependent select box in an accessible way. (published at evolt.org)
Create Pop-ups Without Dead Links - June 2004
A short article explaining how you can create popup windows with
enhanced features only for those browsers and settings supporting it.
Currently this article is with a wrong photo and was mildly edited, if
you want to read the original proposal, you can read it here. (published at Sitepoint.com)
HTML, CSS and Tables - the beauty of Data - November 2004
This article shows you how to style tables with CSS and save a lot of trouble by sticking to the correct markup to create valid, accessible data tables. (published at devarticles.com)
Taming the select - November 2004
Originally meant for alistapart, this article show you how to safely style a select dropdown and how to create accessible selects without a go button. (published at devarticles.com)
Accessibility overview for designers - November 2003
This is the material used for an internal training to raise awareness about accessibility. Good for non-developers to give them an insight how development looks like from the markup point of view. (published at onlinetools.org)
How to improve web site accessibility and capture new business - Jan 2004
A presentation I held at the travel technology show in January 2004. It gives a nice overview why taking accessibility into consideration at the beginning of a development cycle can save money and time in testing later, and increase the popularity of the product. You can also see the Powerpoint slides. (published at onlinetools.org)
YADM - Yet another dynamic menu - June 2004
This "article" is a copy of the YADM homepage. (published at Devarticles.com)
Conjuring site navigation - June 2004
A JavaScript-trick to automatically add a navigation dropdown to the page. The navigation gets populated by the LINK data in the document, thus enhancing browsers that don't do that. Comes with a PHP example, too. (published at Alistapart.com)
Dynamic Elements - cloak and dagger web design - September 2004
Dynamic elements make web pages more fun, more interactive and allow us to make pages more usable - if we have CSS, Javascript and a mouse at our disposal. This article discusses some uses of dynamic page elements with accessibility and usability in mind and shows where they fail and what to do to make them better. You can view this article in a local version, that gets maintained more frequently. (published at Evolt.org)
Learn to let go - May 2004
Accessibility is only partly a problem of technology. It is also a mindset. This article and tool describes how you can empower your users to change your site for their needs. (published at Evolt.org)
The table ruler - April 2004
A JavaScript-trick how to make a table row highlight when you hover the mouse over it. Using DOM to avoid the need for inline event calls, the HTML of the table is kept very clean. (published at Alistapart.com)
The ultimate web development tool - April 2004
What is the best tool to develop web products? Is there one that helps us create faster, more efficient and clean without costing a lot of money? Yes, there is, and you have been using it for ages (published at Evolt.org)
I am user, hear me roar - April 2004
You want them, you need them - Users. Hear from one of them what you might do wrong and what you can do to make up for that. (published at Evolt.org)
Recommended books about Usability
Don't make me think!
Steve Krug's book is a very easy and quick to read guide on basic usability. It should be read by anyone who designs web sites. Krug explains how basic usability works, how you can avoid confusing your visitors and gives examples what worked for others. Included is also a guide to low cost usability testing. You can finish the book on a long train ride and save hours of development with the wrong focus.
Son of web pages that suck
I avoided Vincent Flander's books and publications, as I don't consider pointing out errors very productive. However, years of frustration talking clients out of bad ideas made me reconsider and I ordered a copy of this book, after reading the excellent the biggest web design mistakes of 2004 article on his web site. This book takes a lighthearted approach to web design, showing bad examples and explaing why they are bad. If you are an inexperienced web designer, it can prevent you from doing a lot of useless work.
