Web Usability and Accessibility

Web Usability

Usability is a widely used term that refers to ease-of-use of an application or software. Much has been said and studied about web usability. In the earlier days, designers would build a website following the conventional standards of reading in the offline world, approaching the web as if it were a book.  Today, all the research reveals, users do not read a website, they scan it. Furthermore, they do not scan in a left to right, top to bottom fashion like we would a book, we go in very unpredictable ways as illustrated in the following figure (Taken from "Don't Make Me Think -A Common Sense Approach for Web Usability" by Steve Krug.)

If you want to take advantage of your website, you need to know how your visitors approach it when looking for information. 

Web Accessibility

Making your website accessibility to the user at large is good, but making it accessible to users with disabilities, is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. Programming with accessibility standards allows your website to be navigated by aiding software, such as, screen readers which ensure you leave no one out of your website's reach.

 

The following Web Usability and Accessibility slideshow will help you with the most important concepts so that you can easily and effectively put them into practice.

View the Web Usability and Accessibility Guide now »

 

 

Download the Web Usability and Accessibility Guide now »