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Increase User-friendliness and Accessibility by ensuring Clear Content, Layout and Design to allow for smooth movement around your website Roberto Hortal Head of eBusiness
| Date post: | 11-Nov-2014 |
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Increase User-friendliness and Accessibility by ensuring Clear Content, Layout and Design to
allow for smooth movement around your website
Roberto Hortal
Head of eBusiness
Design vs Functionality?
Design and Functionality
Websites should be both visually appealing and functionally powerful
Don’t decorate, communicate
The Sphere of design
Natural trade-off.An excellent high-functionalityapplication and a great workof online art falls outside the
sphere of design (1)
Things that have the highestaesthetic beauty and impact cause you to stop and look, things that are most functionally effective help you to do the job you want to achieve without being looked at
Source: http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
The Sphere of design
The most functional web sitesare information-rich, quick andobvious to use. They can bettractive but focus on function
would be compromised if theywere too visually impacting
The most beautiful designs are rich in visually-
stimulating elements. They cannot also feature the weight of highly functional features that would put them atop the functional quality scale
Source: http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
The Sphere of Design
The most effectivevisual designs need someaesthetic quality. Even themost functional design (such
as instructions for assemblingfurniture, technical manuals,forms and reports) work better when they employ a sensitive combination of aesthetic factors like balance, colour and contrast.
Source: http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
The Sphere of Design
Aesthetically effective visualdesigns need to manifestfunctional quality. Somethingwith no functionality is art, not
design. Even the mostbeautiful site will impact morepeople for longer if it can be used. A visually rich site that is easy to navigate and comprehend leaves its visitors more time and mental energy to appreciate the visuals.
Source: http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
The Arch of excellence
The ideal place for a site to sitis on the boundary between2 (most functional) and 3(most beautiful). A site that
genuinely embodies anoptimum combination of looksand works (therefore, sits on the boundary somewhere between 2 and 3) meets the new standard (4).
Source: http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
Apple.com and the Apple store
Skype
easyJet Holidays
The ideal website layout?
Fresh, appealing and easy to use
Old rules don’t apply: inverted L, 3-clicks have
gone the way of the Web-safe palette
Today’s axioms: Jakob’s Law and The Page Paradigm - Information foraging
Staying imperative: Don’t make users think!
Application integration – AJAX and Widgets
Information foraging
Foraging: 1970s theory that suggested that animals constantly consider the available food and the cost of obtaining it, choosing to stay for a while or move on to the next food patch.
1990s: Pirolli and Card noticed similarities between users' information searching patterns and foraging strategies. Users' actions on the
information landscape (links, descriptions, and other data) show that information seekers use the same strategies as food foragers.
Jakob’s law
Users spend most of their time on other sites
Anything that is a convention used on the majority of other sites will be expected, deviating from it will cause major usability problems
Applying conventions throughout enables user to more quickly find and consume your page’s content
Conventions lower the cost of information by removing the need to learn the meaning of some page elements
Misapplied conventions raise this cost doubly
Jakob Nielsen http://www.useit.com
The Page Paradigm
On any given Web page, users will either click something that appears to take them closer to the fulfilment of their goal, or click the Back button on their Web browser
The Goal is very specific, and it's the defining motivator of that user's experience on the website
Consistency is NOT necessary (except where this conflicts with Jakob’s law)
Users don't care "where they are" in the website
Mark Hurst http://www.goodexperience.com
Current layout trends
Simple layout (simple ≠ minimalistic)
1 and 2 column designs
Pages read in a straightforward way from top to bottom
Much calmer, solid browsing experience
Centred orientation
Vertical scroll - no need to maximize above the fold
Symmetric, balanced, more visually pleasing
Fixed or Zoom-width
Current layout trends
Design the content, not the page
Freer, less boxed-in layouts
Soft, simple, receding page furniture
Strong colour and 3D draws attention to content
Nice, big text
Most important text on the page bigger than other text
Text size as label: what is this about, where do I go next?
Current layout trends
Plenty of whitespace, strong accent colour
Design’s taken a deep breath
Space helps the eye understand cleanly and clearly identify elements
Extra line height helps read on screen
Inline links
Navigation in the content, not around it
Supporting the Page Paradigm
Clearly labelled and highly visible
Layout trends – Mozilla
Layout trends - PetHealthcare
Layout trends – Facebook
Quality of content
Size does matter, and bigger is better
User-centric content, not just text
A new Golden Rule
Your content beyond your site:
Social media, company blogs,RSS…
Breaking out of the sitemap
Size does matter
More is always better
The long tail – the future of business isselling less of more
Search engines
Navigation to fit it all
Calendars and timelines
The search box
“Less of more” quote: Chris Anderson
Content is not text
Content categorisation?
Text – Wikipedia
Images – Flickr
Video – YouTube
Text and pictures – Amazon, Imdb
User-centric view of content
Amusements, instructions – Flickr, YouTube
Information – Wikipedia, Imdb
Convenience – Tesco, Amazon
Content as value
A new Golden Rule
Everything that goes into a website must have a purpose
Every single feature must
Help your visitors achieve their goals, or
Support the site’s goals without obstructing the visitors’ goals
Wasn’t bigger better?
Put the user at the centre and ask what they need
Expand the site’s goals/launch complementary sites
Your content beyond your site
Buzz monitoring: understanding what people are talking about
Be useful, relevant, generous: encourage sharing – RSS, podcasts, articles, blogs, PR
Participate, don’t infiltrate.
It’s not about control
Google is a ReputationManagement Engine
Google quote: Wired’s Clive Thompson
Accessibility – the DDA
Section III of the DDA, which refers to accessible websites, came into force on 1st October 1999. The Code of Practice was published on 27th May 2002. Excerpts include:
2.2 (p7): “The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public.”
4.7 (p39): “From 1st October 1999 a service provider has to take reasonable steps to change a practice which makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services.”
Accessibility – the DDA
2.13 - 2.17 (p11-13): “What services are affected by the Disability Discrimination Act? An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service”
5.23 (p71): “For people with visual impairments, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ... accessible websites.”
5.26 (p68): “For people with hearing disabilities, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ... accessible websites.”
DDA - enforcing and complying
Enforcing: Disability Rights Commission (DRC)
Launched a formal investigation of over 1000 websites in 2004
Organisations will face legal action under the DDA and the threat of unlimited compensation payments.
Complying: W3C accessibility guidelines
Priority 1 (A) must be adhered to
Priority 2 (AA) should be adhered to and are the EU recommended level of compliance
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html
Accessibility in numbers
8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK - 14% of the population (DRC)
1/12 men & 1/200 women have colour blindness - 9% of UK population (Institution of Electrical Engineers2)
2M UK residents have a sight problem - 4% of the population (RNIB)
12M people 60 or over - 21% of the UK population (UK government statistics service)
Adding up: 48% of the UK population(overlap not accounted for)
The accessibility business case
Better usability
Higher SEO ranking – Google is disabled
Wider reach across platforms, devices, browsers
Future-proof services and pages
Faster download speeds
Easier, lower cost maintenance
No fear of legal action
Roberto Hortal
Head of eBusiness
Presentation available at www.hortal.com
Thank you
