Archive for the ‘Accessibility’ Category
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
The other day I was asked the question “To what level does any website legally need to be made accessible?”
“The influence of web accessibility on business and industry is more significant when the demands of a client, or potential client, like the US federal government, must be met.” (
WebAim.org)
The law that exists today says that if you are the federal government or supply electronic and information technology goods and services to the federal government, then yes, you must comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 508 Standards). This law requires “Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities.” (section508.gov)
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Tags: Accessibility, Gestural User Interfaces, Guidelines, User Experience, W3C, wcag guidelines
Posted in Accessibility | 8 Comments »
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Word on the street is that if you have a great site you should create a mobile app. I’ve been hearing it a lot from clients lately that everybody is on their phone and “if users could access our information then our product will be more valuable.” Is this just a fad or is it valid? Well, that depends on your customers and your business goals. (more…)
Tags: Interaction Design, Mobile, User Experience
Posted in Accessibility, Design Strategy, Interaction Design, Recent Posts, User Experience, User Research | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
It has been over six months since we started the Evantage User Experience Blog, and as Mary mentioned in the earlier post, it’s time for us to pause, reflect and evaluate how we have been doing. In this article, I will discuss the challenges we have faced so far and what we learned from them in our efforts to keep the blog going. I will also share the metrics we collected and analyzed to answer the question we started with – Is a User Experience blog an effective medium to promote Thought Leadership?
The User Experience Team at Evantage hopes that our learnings will help other teams think about similar endeavors and that the combined efforts will foster thought leadership in the User Experience domain.
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Tags: Blogging, Thought Leadership, User Experience
Posted in Accessibility, Analytics, Social Media, Tools and Techniques, User Experience, User Research | 2 Comments »
Friday, August 14th, 2009
When designing a site, it is important to remember that not all of your users will be accessing your web site using a computer screen, keyboard, or standard computer mouse. People with disabilities use a variety of adaptive technologies to access web sites.
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Tags: Accessibility, screen magnifiers, screen readers, W3C
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Monday, July 6th, 2009
I often hear how accessibility can help everyone. One of the most common examples I’ve heard is that sidewalk ramps not only help people in wheel chairs but they also help people rolling luggage, strollers, hot dog carts, grocery carts, etc. Along the same lines the WCAG 2.0 guidelines listed below are by far some of my favorite because they can improve content in a web site for everyone. These guidelines should not only be applied to accessibility, they should also be applied to style guidelines and user interface guidelines for a site.
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Tags: Accessibility, W3C, wcag, WCAG 2.0, wcag guidelines, website readability
Posted in Accessibility | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
Accessibility is the development of information systems flexible enough to accommodate the needs of the broadcast range of users regardless of age or disability.
When creating a site that is accessible, make sure that it is accessible no matter what Internet browser is being used. You will also want to take into consideration that there are different types of assistive devices that users may be using and of these devices there are different versions of each device. Below are few tips and considerations to take when evaluating a site for accessibility.
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Tags: Accessibility, screen magnifiers, screen readers, W3C
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Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
I received the new Dwell magazine (Volume 9, issue 6, May 2009 “Beyond Green”) a couple of weeks ago. As I read the editor’s note about sustainability, I kept replacing the word sustainability with accessibility.
In Dwell Sam Grawe, editor-in-chief, states we as individuals need to make micro-decisions to improve sustainability and “government, corporations, and other institutions need to lay a framework that makes adopting those decisions easy.” (May 2009) The 508 law (Rehabilitation Act) was passed “to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.” (http://www.section508.gov/) Currently, the law applies only to federal agencies. Corporations and we as individuals are responsible for ensuring that this expands to other areas.
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Tags: Accessibility
Posted in Accessibility, User Experience | Comments Off
