http://blog.keyes.us/2008/04/10/the-sorry-state-of-usability/ Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:04:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://blog.keyes.us/2008/04/10/the-sorry-state-of-usability/comment-page-1/#comment-14236 Robin Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:07:35 +0000 http://blog.keyes.us/2008/04/10/the-sorry-state-of-usability/#comment-14236 I think usability is something that's very often overlooked in favour of over-zealous adherence to tickbox web accessibility standards. Too many people fail to realise that "accessibility" in this particular context doesn't really mean that the site is accessible to the general user as a visitor experience. It's also surprising how many things can be easily overlooked by the tech savvy developer, things that I think are simple and obvious clearly aren't when I get a web novice to evaluate the site for me. As a simple example of a wider problem, on my homepage I used to have no "Home" menu button because I thought it was obvious and common practice that one could reach the homepage by clicking on the main logo...but that wasn't the case when it came to testing it with less experienced web users. I think usability is something that’s very often overlooked in favour of over-zealous adherence to tickbox web accessibility standards. Too many people fail to realise that “accessibility” in this particular context doesn’t really mean that the site is accessible to the general user as a visitor experience. It’s also surprising how many things can be easily overlooked by the tech savvy developer, things that I think are simple and obvious clearly aren’t when I get a web novice to evaluate the site for me. As a simple example of a wider problem, on my homepage I used to have no “Home” menu button because I thought it was obvious and common practice that one could reach the homepage by clicking on the main logo…but that wasn’t the case when it came to testing it with less experienced web users.

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