Got a burning usability or accessibility question? Why not drop us a line?
Asked: March 2005 by someone in the finance sector
User-centred Design (UCD) is a philosophy that puts the user at the centre of the design process. The last website you shouted at was probably not built by people who believe in or understand UCD.
There are lots of different UCD methods - from usability testing and expert evaluation to storyboarding, focus groups and field studies. The common thread is trying to understand how the system can be made better for the user.
The alternative are systems that are shaped solely by their constituent components, technical creators, or obtuse organisational processes and structures. These tend to be bad systems or websites.
Asked: March 2004 by a project manager from a public sector organisation
We find the most effective method of ensuring that developers recognise usability as important is very simple: show them video of average users not being able to use what they've built.
Be prepared for an automatic reaction, though: "These users are idiots! Get better users!". Make sure you can qualify your choice of user.
Asked: August 2003 by a local authority Web co-ordinator
Some disability rights activists will tell you that providing a separate, accessible, interface to your site's content effectively creates an online "ghetto", and is seen as a less desirable solution than simply making your main site accessible in the first place.
We say: rubbish. As far as we are aware, the priority for disabled (for example visually impaired) users is simply to get access to the content in the first place. And whilst you might be able to achieve wonders using alternative style-sheets optimised for accessibility, a separate interface may well be the best option for your site.
Asked: January 2003 by Web-coordinator of a charitable organisation
Drop-down menus have caused problems in usability tests we've run and seen - particularly with inexperienced or older Web users. The issue is that unconfident users don't realise that there are "hidden" links, and seemed unwilling even to move the mouse until they knew where to click. Confident users, on the other hand, interacted readily with the page, and hence "discovered" the drop-down accidentally.
So, we'd say that if your audience includes users who are not that confident online, think twice about drop-down menus.
Also remember that drop-down menus hide the trigger words that your users are desperately scanning the screen for. And most drop-down menus are very code-heavy, load slowly and break on anything other than Internet Explorer.
Asked: May 2002 by the ICT co-ordinator of a local authority
We can turn round an "emergency" (normally pre-go live) usability test in under a week, although our normal project lifecycle is about 2 weeks. One of the main determinents is how difficult to recruit your users are!
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