The case for Plain English on higher ed websites

Plain English and reading scores are sometimes considered irrelevant for higher education websites. Georgy Cohen explains why intellectual snobbery and sloppy copy can't be allowed to persist on university websites.

Colour blind views of websites

A great website dedicated to highlighting the experiences of colour blind people. There are good and bad examples, as well as a simulator.

Good and bad examples at We Are Color Blind

Accessibility guidelines - SUPA Edinburgh session

The next session run by the Scottish Usability Professionals Association will be on developing web accessibility guidelines and a web accessibility culture.

6 design & usability guidelines

Some core principles summed up in 6 guidelines; Pamela Vaughan's article is well worth a review.

Web accessibility myths

An excellent article by Jonathan Hassell which tackles some fundamental challenges presented to people trying to steer their organisations to more accessible websites and services. The accessibility agenda seems to be moving from focusing on the developer to focusing on the business which is encouraging.

Link writing advice

A couple of articles offering some very good advice on what makes effective link text.

Links are at the core of what the web is about. When I observe website visitors in user testing sessions, they're often the root cause of the problems they encounter.

Well written links are critical for good usability, accessibility and search engine optimisation.

If you write web content, you should have most of these points at the forefront of your mind.

The only point I'd disagree with is Trenton Moss's "limit links to four words". I've seen research from Jared Spool which suggests the most effective link text is typically longer than this. And I've seen first hand how poorly one- and two-word link text can perform.

While I think it always depends, for me four words would usually be the minimum for in-page link text and a few more words will generally bring more clarity. So long as the most important words are the first two or three.

Editorial Style for Inline Links - article for meetcontent.com by Rick Allen

Writing effective link text - artilce for webcredible by Trenton Moss

Free usability & accessibility event at Uservision in Edinburgh

Edinburgh usability company Uservision are celebrating World Usability Day on 10 November with a free open house event, which features a talk on website accessibility from Jonathan Hassell from the BBC.

Scottish UPA HTML5 session

This month's Scottish Usability Professionals Association (SUPA) session is on HTML5 and its impact on accessibility. It's being held in central Edinburgh on Tuesday 25 October.

Usability and user experience

"The difference (and relationship) between usability and use experience". An article on a website called Usability Geek. Maybe not something that immediately strikes you as something for anyone other than a specialist, but worth a look as the author does a good job of placing the role of usability in the wider context of website management and marketing.

Writing accessible link text

A quick reminder of why considered link text is important for accessibility, including some examples and a few tips to help you do a better job.

Link purpose: accessibility for web writers - article by 4syllables.com

More accessibility tips for web writers

UPA accessibility session 24th May

The next Scottish Usability Professionals Association (SUPA) event is 24 May. The session, led by David Sloan from the University of Dundee focuses on the challenge of engaging industry and the public sector in accessible, inclusive design.

Screenreader usage survey

A survey of over 1000 European screenreader users in December 2010 by Web AIM.

Better ALT text - context matters

An excellent article on how and when to tag your images with alternate (ALT) text. Examples of good and bad practice help us understand how this image substitute text should be used. A must read for every web publisher.

Dyslexic university student blog

An interesting insight into the problems a university student with dyslexia encounters in their day to day life and with their studies.

New BBC website accessibility tool

The BBC launched a trial of their new website accessibility tool, My Display, last month.

Web accessibility - a new community tool

I've just discovered fixtheweb.net which, if it proves successful, will be an excellent initiative improving website accessibility and the online experience of disabled users.

Eyetracking - real world examples

Three unrelated eyetracking articles, all with different focuses and interesting for different reasons. The key thing to learn here (if you didn't know it already) is never assume people take in information in a linear fashion - their attention is fleeting and moves in sometimes unexpected directions.

Web forms - usability & accessibility

I've been doing some reading up on web forms lately as we're working on introducing a new feature to the University's content management system. The forms that will be generated obviously need to be accessible, but we're keen to help publishers ensure they're as usable as possible too.

It goes without saying that my number one point of reference has been Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney's book - Forms that Work. The accompanying website has tons of useful advice and links to further information too.
Forms that Work - free online resources and book promotion

Caroline Jarrett recently gave a presentation at the Usability Professionals Association conference.
Design tips for complex forms - presentation slides from Caroline Jarrett

A great introduction to making web forms accessible is provided by Webcredible.
Making accessible forms - article by Trenton Moss for Webcredible.com

Jakob Nielsen looks at the things you should consider when using checkboxes and radio buttons.
Checkboxes vs. Radio Buttons - article by Jakob Nielsen

A more techie article, but interesting and useful nonetheless. I like the breakdown of the guidance here into what's accessibility, what's usability and what's law.
Accessible forms: Guidelines, examples and accessible JavaScript tricks - article by Mike Foskett for websemantics.co.uk

Finally, a great article from Web AIM (Accessibility In Mind):
Creating Accessible Forms - WebAIM.org

Accessibility tools, articles & advice

In the process of looking for a tool to check the accessibility of a form the other day, I came across this list of online tools and browser plugins.

In addition to web page validators, there are a number of other useful tools on the list that give you an idea of how you pages will work for someone using a screenreader or someone with colour blindness.

Top 10 accessibility tools - article by abilitynet.org

The Abilitynet site contains a wealth of articles, advice and resources for anyone looking to make their web content as accessible as possible.

Abilitynet website - online accessibility specialists

The section on legal compliance in particular caught my eye.

What the law says about accessibility in education - an overview by abilitynet.org

Usable & accessible PDFs - 10 tips

The bottom line with accessible PDFs is make sure the source material is accessible and use a professional PDF creator. Print-to-PDF engines don't seem to be up to the job.

Before converting to PDF:

• Properly label headings and ensure they’re correctly nested
• Assign alternative text to images
• Follow best practice writing for the web

10 tips for creating usable and accessible PDFs - article by Deborah Edwards-Onoro