Thursday, October 11, 2007
New Redesign
Last week, I launched a redesign to the Office of Admissions homepage. This redesign was completely fueled by statistical reports from our web analytics software. Besides our homepage, our highest traffic destinations were the majors section and the calendar. Click-through testing found that these areas were not as easy to find as they should be.Therefore, the redesign focused on bringing these areas to the home page. The majors are now available right in the center, and the calendar is integrated into the footer - and every page on the site.
I will run official reports in a month and analyze the data in more depth, but early indications show more click-throughs to the majors and less searches for events.
You can check out the new, more functional design at: http://admissions.unl.edu
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Accessible Web Experience Design
One of the hot topics today, as you are well aware of, is AJAX. It allows us to create some amazing programs which work inside the browser. AJAX is the driving force behind the web experience design trend.
The one thing AJAX lacks is a simple implementation of accessibility. Many have come up with ideas on making the experience more accessible, but in reality it comes back to the need to build a process for the exceptions.
We're building a system on TWEEK to work with this issue. On the main UNL website we have also come up with some enhancements for users without javascript and/or users with screen readers.
If you are interested in this, follow the following links for more information. This is where I have started and as I develop more RIA I will update you on my findings.
- Standards Schmandards
http://www.standards-schmandards.com/2005/ajax-and-accessibility - W3C's commitment
http://www.w3.org/2006/09/aria-pressrelease.html - bestkungfu weblog
http://www.bestkungfu.com/archive/date/2005/03/ajaxessibility/ - 456 Berea St
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200511/web_20_and_accessibility/
Monday, October 16, 2006
Free Lasik -- if you can see
I heard on the radio today that a local eye doctor's office was giving away free Lasik sugery to one needy individual. All you have to do is fill out a form on their website. Being a wearer of contacts and having a desire for Lasik, I figured I would look into it. It turns out the practice has a very long form on their website with a required essay. Even though it sounds better than the do-it-yourself Lasik option, I opted to not fill out the form.
After a closer look at this site, I noticed it fails miserably at accessibility, especially for vision-impaired individuals -- their primary audience.
All images lack the alt attribute - the main reason for the lawsuit against Target. The top navigation involves text inside an image, something which a screen-reader won't be able to understand. If a user is able to see, but has an issue with contrast, the left side navigation is next to impossible. Good luck finding your way through this site if you have a vision-impairment.
The major issue with accessibility is not that it is tough to implement -- all these changes can be corrected in twenty minutes -- it's that too many designers don't understand. If a contractor were to build an office for these doctors, the office would have wheelchair accessibility and Braille signs. But when the web designer is contracted, these rules are discarded. In the end, the business receives an incomplete website with a possible pending lawsuit. I hope they saved a lot of money by going with the cheap designer.