Thursday, June 09, 2005

Creating Usable and Accessible Web Content

This is the notes taken from Janice (Ginny) Redish's talk at the UK UPA.

People come to web sites for the content. So why is so much content on the web poorly organized, poorly written, poorly designed?


Ginny Redish's had a talk at last month's UK UPA. In her talk, she outlined what users really want from a web page by illustrations of her recent relevent research studies.

She claimed that users go to website because they are goal/task oriented. they don't care how the website is organised. (However, if your site is not well organised, users will not be able to fullfill their tasks.)

There are three types of web pages: home page, pathway pages (where users can scan, select and move on), and destination pages (where users can scan and get information)/form pages (where users can scan and give information).

The web is a conversation started by a very busy user. Therefore, users don't want to read (or think) much before the destination page.

Ginny also pointed out that users want to:
- get the big pucture from the home page by scanning not reading.
- when on destination pages, users don't want to read more than is necessary.

An interesting excercise was used to give explain how web contents writers should follow users' logic. For example, she asked audiences to do draw pictures by listening to her words. She gave descriptions in two ways:
1. Starting with the name of the object, then different parts of it
2. Starting with the parts of the object, then finishe it by saying this is a ...

Whichever way she used, it's always easier if the first description is a very easy word, say circle, rectangular, umbrella, etc. Therefore, she reconed that in web contents writing, we should start with the user already knows or something that lets the users say: "This applys to me.".

In her presetation, she also pointed out that don't just say "click here" or "more" on the page. This has also been pointed out by lots of other accessiblity experts, because for screen reader users because all they can hear is "click here" "click here", "more" "more"...which doesn't make any sense to them. So, provide meaningful contents(links) rather than "click here"!

Some useful references:
On Caroline Jarrerr's three-layer model
Jarrett, Caroline, 2000, Designing usable forms: The three0layer model of the form, http://www.formsthatwork.com/ftp/DesigningUsableForms.pdf

On the concept that web sites have personalities and roles
Coney, M and Steehouder, M., 2000, Role playing on the web: Guildlines for designing and evaluating personas online, Technical Communication, 47 (3), August, 327 - 340.

The AARP study on older adults and the web
Chrisnell, D. and Redish, J. C., 2005, Designing Web Sites for Older Adults: Expert Review of Usability for Older Adults at 50 Web Sites (permanent home will be at http://www.aarp.org/olderwiserwired; temporarily available from http://www.razorgirl.com/oww/50_Sites-Main_report.pdf.

Chrisnell, D. and Redish, J. C., 2005, Designing Web Sites for Older Adults: A Review of the Recent Research(permanent home will be at http://www.aarp.org/olderwiserwired; temporarily available from http://www.razorgirl.com/oww/AARPweblitreview.pdf). The heuristics used in this study are available as a separate handout from http://www.redish.net/content/handouts.html

Recent research on accessibility
Disability Rights Commission, 2004, The web: Acess and Inclusion for Disabled People (report of a formal investigation, let by Prof. Helen Petrie), available at http://www-hcid.soi.city.ac.uk/research/DRC_Report.pdf.

Theofanos, M. F. and Redish, J. C., 2003, Guidelines for accessible and usable web sites: Observing users who work with screen readers, Interactions, X (6), November-December, 38-51. (http://www.redish.net/content/papers.html)

Theofanos, M. F. and Redish, J. C., 2005, Helping low-vision and other users with web sites that meet their needs: Is one site for all feasible, Technical Communication, 52, 1, February, 9 - 20 (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc)

On the IBM tool that lets people set profiles for rendering web sites
Information and a demo can be found at http://www-306.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/WebAdapt2Me.html

From Ginny Redish on writing successful web content
Redish, J. C., in preparation, Letting Go of the words, (a book on writing web content that works) San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.

Redish, J. C, 2004, Writing for the web: Letting go of the words, Intercom, 51 (6), June, 4-10

Redish, J. C., 2005, Lessons Learned from Web Site Usability Testing, handout from a session at the Society for Technical Communication Conference, May 2005, http://www.redish.net/content/handouts.html