Posted on Mon, Sep 14, 2009
Over the weekend I installed Snow Leopard, Apple’s new operating system, onto my trusty MacBook. During the install I was reading about the new features and one of them reminded me of an important, often overlooked, usability principal: websites should be usable for people with visual disabilities.
Apple achieved this with Universal Access. It includes support for over 40 Braille displays and advanced screen reading technology that not only reads the text on the screen, but tells the user what items they touch with the mouse and how the items are arranged on the screen.
Apple has done its part, but if individual websites aren’t usable for the visually disabled, Universal Access can’t help much. Many websites are graphics or flash-heavy and contain non-descriptive links that can be confusing to users relying on screen readers, magnifiers or Braille displays. Images lacking descriptive ALT text or links that simply say “click here” may make sense to the average user, but if a user is relying on a screen reader all they will hear is “click here” and won’t know where the link will take them or what image is displayed on the screen. According to a study conducted by Jakob Neilsen and Kara Pernice, the web is three times more usable for users without visual disabilities than it is for users who are visually disabled.
So what does this mean for you and your website? The good news is that it is not very hard to improve the usability of your website for the visually disabled. Adding descriptive ALT text to your images, using descriptive text for your links and condensing content to avoid long blocks of text will go a long way in making your website more user-friendly. And the even better news is that users with visual disabilities will be more likely to stay on your site and conduct business with you.
Kudos to Apple for adding this technology to their new OS, and kudos to developers who design websites and software with visually disabled users in mind.
Further reading: Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users with Disabilities
Posted on Fri, Sep 04, 2009
I don’t know about you guys, but things at Evolve are kerazee busy. That’s why we’re totally looking forward to letting our hair down at the OKCtweetup on September 10.
More specifically, we’re looking forward to get our Rock Band on and let our inner Ringo shine.
There will be a room dedicated to wannabe rock stars at the OKCtweetup where anyone can jump in, grab a mic (or guitar) and play the awesome new Beatles: Rock Band game.
Everyone who plays Beatles: Rock Band will be entered into a drawing to win an awesome prize. AMAOKC/OKCtweetup are giving away the Beatles: Rock Band game and instruments! Now that is an excellent prize. But that’s not all.
Evolve will be giving away a brand new Xbox 360!
So, all you have to do is go to the OKCtweetup and play the game (doesn’t matter how good or bad you are) and you could win ALL of the above. That’s huge!
Fun Facts:
- Rock Band: Beatles took 2 years to make and is aimed at a much broader demographic than the other Rock Band games – kids to 60 somethings.
- The Rock Band instruments are modeled from the actual instruments used by the Beatles.
- In addition to the 42 Beatles tracks that come with the game, 3 more Beatles albums (including Abbey Road) will be available for download on the Xbox 360.
- Twitter, Facebook and Last FM are coming to the Xbox 360 in Fall – there is no escaping social media.