[Accessibleweb] Summary from new Web accessibility/usability study

[psmith at u.washington.edu]

Sheryl,

This looks like the same issues the general public complain about when trying to navigate around in some websites.

Clear & simple is good. There seems to be a tendency towards "eye catching" which probably is fine for advertising in some cases - it is interesting to watch this medium mature.

Thanks - I will forward this to some of the Facilities folks if that is OK with you.

Pat

On Fri, 9 Dec 2005, Sheryl Burgstahler wrote:

>
> http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2825.asp
>
> Part of the summary says:
>
> The research asked a cross-section of more than 200 web users, with a variety 
> of impairments, to rank, in terms of importance, the factors which aid their 
> ease of use when online. Clarity of content using straightforward language and 
> a clear, simple layout was regarded by 88% as very important. Good navigation 
> the ability to know where you are within a site was regarded as very important 
> by 65%, followed by the use of meaningful and clear hyperlinks (63%).
>
> Factors traditionally perceived as the fundamental accessibility issues have 
> become comparatively less significant. Good use of alt tags, for example, was 
> only regarded as very important by a third of respondents - while among the 
> visually impaired users, a surprising 25% found alt tags not important at all.
>
> Respondents were also asked to rank the most annoying and most useful features 
> of websites. Elements that aid users in finding content easily and navigating 
> around sites came up high on the lists, whilst avoiding pop-ups was only fourth 
> in the list of top five annoyances, thanks mainly to the increased use of 
> blockers which eliminate them before they appear. Inevitably scalable text 
> remains an important issue, particularly for visually impaired users.
>
> Top five annoyances
> 1. Not having in-site search
> 2. No sitemap
> 3. No internal page navigation/skip to content/back to top links
> 4. Pop-ups
> 5. Inability to change font size/colour contrast
>
> Top five most useful features
> 1. Having in-site search
> 2. Having a sitemap
> 3. Clear, well labelled links
> 4. Having internal page navigation
> 5. Ability to personalise page view/font size
> -----------------
>
> Thoughts on this?
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>

Pat Smith-Major
Facilities Records
University of Washington
PPOB Box 352215
Seattle WA 98195
206-221-4369
http://www.washington.edu/admin/ada/