Web Accessibility

 

Web Accessibility

Web accessibility - What does it all mean?

Misconception: Web accessibility is about disability.
No, Web accessibility is about universality.

It's about making something that can be used by as many people as possible: different environments, different devices, elderly, different cultural backgrounds, non-English speakers, impaired abilities.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2009, 18.5% of Australians had a reported disability, 8% of males had problems seeing colour, 15% of Australians were from a non-English speaking background and over 46% of Australian adults had low literacy skills.

We need to make our websites easy to use for everyone. The hearing impaired, those with limited mobility, those with reading difficulties and anyone using handheld devices.

Why? By making your content more accessible more people in more locations can read your information and they will understand it more easily. After all, you want everyone to get your message, right?

Accessibility is also a legal requirement.

Misconception: Web accessibility is not my problem.
No, Web accessibility is everyone's responsibility.

We're all in this together. What you do makes a difference. So what do people need?

People need content that is easy to read, works on different devices, is easy to navigate, has good design and colour contrast, images and graphs that are described well, has video captions or transcriptions and has documents and attachments in a format that can be used by everyone everywhere.

So how do you do it?

Think about your audience: Who are you writing for? Who is actually going to read it? What do they need to know?

Structure your content: Is your content in Microsoft Word? Have you used the templates and styles provided? Are your heading styles in the correct order?

Check your language level: Is it short and simple? Is there a plain language summary for any policy or legislation?

Think about alternative options: Are there text descriptions for your images? Do you have data tables for your graphs? Have you provided transcripts for your videos?

Do a quick check: Use the Word Accessibility Checker and correct things as you go.

POPULAR WEB DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

There are many web development tools that has been used by web developer such as Adobe Dreamweaver and Wordpress. Both of the tools have pro and cons distinctively. There are 2 article that explain both tools in details. You can view the article by pressing these 2 linked button Article 1 and Article 2.

These 2 article shows that both of the tools have many advantage and disadvantage of using them. The article also stated the features and the function of the development tools in details which can make the user more understand about which tools they can use to develop a website. Both of the web development tools is being used by the web developer. The Wordpress tools is more reliable when it comes to update any data or information in the website because it can make the user update easily. This feature is a great feature because if a client wants to make any changes for their website they dont need to wait for the web developer to update for them. For Dreamweaver, to update data or information it is quite difficult because they need to open up the database of the website and edit it from there.

For me i usually use the Adobe Dreamweaver because i already use it for a long time. Another reason is that the lecturers taught how to make a website by using Adobe Dreamweaver. Apart from that Dreamweaver is a software that implement WYSIWYG( What You See Is What You Get ) editor. This is because the idea being that you work in a visual design interface, while Dreamweaver writes all of the code for you in the background. You can use menu commands, dialog boxes, panels, and other workspace elements to build your layouts, and remain blissfully unaware of what’s happening in the background. Furthermore Adobe Dreamweaver have many template for the css function that will make your website more conviniently. There are one plugin that can be implement in the Dreamweaver but you have to pay for it.

Adobe Dreamweaver also support JavaScript,HTML and also PHP. This is very advantageous because most of the database function use the PHP language. Apart from that you can also view the Dreamweaver file in a notepad because it support the HTML language too.

WEBSITE EVALUATION FOR SONY

LEARNABILITY

Where to Buy Page

The learnability for the Sony website is that the user can easily type which area that have Sony centre or Sony service by go the the Where to buy page. They also can search in details to know where the store located near them.

EFFICIENCY

Product Page

The sony website provide a page that user can view all the product. But it may make the user hard to understand because it just show the name of the product but if the user want to know the detail they need click the image. Moreover if the user want to navigate to another product they need to select again from the list.

MEMORABILITY

Shows no icon or sign

In this website it provide low memorability to the user because it just show a plain word as a button. It may cause the user hard to navigate from page to page because sometimes they just click what ever have in the browser because they too lazy to read. This is because some of the user will ignore other things that is not important to them.

ERRORS

Error Prevention

In Sony website, if the user search something and the website cant specify the item it will say "There are nothing match". By doing this will make the user know that the item that they want to search is wrong or incorrect spelling.

SATISFACTION

Sony Experience Page

For satisfaction user can view the Experience Sony page. This page provide many video about sony product and why the product is a top class. The user can also know what is the best from Sony by go to this page instead of go to the store that takes their time if they not interested in it.

WEBSITE EVALUATION FOR DELL

LEARNABILITY

DELL HOMEPAGE

Learnability for Dell website we can see that the website homepage is full with product images. This website use the homepage to promote the new product to the customer. By doing this the customer no need to go to the product page in order to view the latest product. It is an easy way for user just to navigate from the homepage only.

EFFICIENCY

DELL PRODUCT PAGE (Search Function)

The effiency of this website is that the user can easily search what they want in a product page. This is because Dell website provide a good searching system where they no need to make the user to scroll up and down in order to find the item needed. The user just need to key in the name of the product or the model name.

MEMORABILITY

ICON BESIDE BUTTON

The Dell website use the icon to make the user easily to know the function of the button. By doing icon or logo is the best way for user to know the button navigation. As we can see the picture above, when the user click the trolley icon it will automatically take the user to the order page or product page.

ERRORS

USER ACCOUNT PAGE

In the account login page user can login to view their account status where they can check their warranty status and ordered item. If they forget the password or the email that has been use they can easily click the ‘forgot your password’ button to retrieve reset the password. By doing this it can avoid the user from lost its item.

SATISFACTION

GAMING GEAR PAGE

This website uses different background color for certain page but the button and the layout of the website still the same. By doing this it will prevent the user from getting confuse while surfing the website. The color that the website choose is based on their product concept which is for the gaming page they use the black theme color.