Nice rant in the newspaper recently about the art world’s inability to discuss its works in a way that normal people can understand. But as one poster so accurately put it:
It’s not just the art field; it’s most fields. People should be able to express complex ideas plainly, but they confuse complexity of language with complexity of thought. Or maybe they just aren’t saying anything real or don’t know what they’re trying to say. As Mr. Canter says, abstract nouns are one hallmark of empty writing.
Lots of companies are guilty of doing this with their web copy, for example. They think that by using longer words where simpler ones would do, they make their offering sound superior.
It doesn’t though. It alienates a lot of people and confuses them…
I can certainly remember reading descriptions about art shows and not really understanding what was being said. It went over my head, I assumed the show wasn’t for me and so I didn’t go. Imagine if that’s what your web copy’s doing to people who visit your site.
Posted: February 10th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Copywriting, Writing style | Tags: Accessibility, Copywriting, writing | No Comments »
People are increasingly using the internet on mobile devices and companies need to provide an equal user experience for visitors accessing their online information in different ways.
However, a recent Gomez/dotMobi report says that mobile web performance is getting worse (in the airline, banking and search industries at least): there’s an increasing gap between ‘traditional’ and mobile websites, with the former getting faster and the latter getting slower.
Are two websites better than one?
Many organisations (such as Vodafone) are producing two websites: a ‘traditional’ one for PCs and another version for mobile browsers. This is generating a lot of discussion in the industry (including among accessibility professionals) regarding the need for – and wisdom of – separate websites.
The arguments are wide ranging, from making the same content available to everyone (without forcing people with different browsers to use a different version of a website) to providing a good user experience across all devices.
It also raises issues of doubling maintenance efforts (and therefore costs) as well as ensuring content is consistent and up to date across both sites.
Mobile performance criteria
The Gomez/dotMobi study looked at the mobile web experiences provided by leading companies in the three sectors, across major wireless networks. It measured:
- availability – making sure customers get the information they need, when they need it
- response time – how quickly visitors can access content and perform tasks
- consistency – consistent user experiences, no matter where they are
- discoverability – how easily customers can find a mobile site from various URLs
- readiness – making sure the mobile website renders as intended on popular devices
American Airlines, Bank of America and Amazon ranked highest among the selected companies in their respective sectors (Google wasn’t included because its mobile web application “did not meet the technical requirements for benchmark participation”).
What are the roots of the problem?
Gomez says that despite consumers’ high expectations for mobile web experiences, quality experiences continue to be a challenge for many businesses. The company says that this should be a concern for both brand managers and technical teams.
I’d be interested to know what the study team thought were the main causes of these performance issues: bloated code, poor navigation and content that’s not fit for purpose, for example? Of course, this is common to all types of websites; not just mobile ones.
The majority of these issues could begin to be addressed by following standards and accessibility guidelines. Sites that do often perform better, make maintenance simpler and decrease related costs. In addition, effective use of CSS can also avoid the need for separate websites for different devices.
I’d be curious to know how some of the other corporate sectors perform, those that aren’t as consumer facing as the three chosen for this study. If anybody’s aware of any reports, let us know.
Further reading
This post also appeared on Corporate Eye, where I write articles on whole-site issues for corporate websites.
Posted: May 15th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Accessibility, Mobile web | Tags: Accessibility, Mobile web, research | No Comments »
As more and more companies provide and actively encourage their stakeholders to access corporate information online, accessibility is becoming an even greater issue.
Accessible websites benefit everyone, both visitors and business. But research shows that many corporate websites are still failing to reach even minimum accessibility standards.
Accessibility is a legal requirement for many businesses
Service providers in the UK have been legally required to provide accessible websites and applications since 1999. According to the Disability Discrimination Act, businesses have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to enable a disabled person to make use of its services, including those provided online.
A website’s design should make sure all users can have full and equal access to both services and information. If not, they run the risk of being accused of discrimination against people with disabilities, followed by being sued and receiving a lot of negative publicity.
All visitors benefit from more accessible websites
However, an accessible website isn’t just for people with disabilities. All visitors benefit from more accessible websites, from faster loading times through to easier-to-read text.
Accessible websites also benefit visitors with changing abilities, such as age-related issues, or people accessing information using both older (dial-up internet) and newer (mobile handsets) technologies.
Corporate websites serve audiences with diverse needs
Corporate websites provide information ranging from shareholder resources through to job vacancies. Consider two typical, very different audiences that would benefit from a more accessible website:
- Retired employees: many older visitors suffer from age-related issues, such as poor vision and mobility difficulties (where using a mouse may be a problem). They also often use older equipment or browsers to access information.
- Institutional shareholders: analysts often need to access financial information quickly via, for example, mobile handsets and platforms. They might also be using a slower internet connection reliant on a good mobile signal.
Accessibility provides tangible business benefits
Organisations with corporate websites that meet minimum accessibility requirements experience a number of business benefits. For example, the website will have an greater audience reach, it will be ‘future proofed’ as technologies change and its content will be optimised for search engines.
A popular case study is Legal & General, which launched a new website in 2006. It saw a massive increase in conversion rates (people asking for quotes), its search engine rankings significantly improved and it experienced a 100 per cent return on investment (ROI) within just 6 months, among many other benefits.
Corporate websites need to do better
In March 2006, Nomensa conducted research that showed ‘almost 75 per cent of businesses in the FTSE 100 list of companies fail to meet the minimum requirements for website accessibility’, as set by the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Why are so many corporate websites failing on this front? There are a number of reasons, many of which may be practical but certainly aren’t an excuse. These range from under-resourcing through to a lack of in-house knowledge.
Some useful accessibility starting points
Convinced but not sure where to start in the short term? Try some of the following simple (but not necessarily quick) checks:
- Make sure your text is presented in short paragraphs, using plain English, lists and descriptive headings.
- Make sure your headings are in header tags and in the correct hierarchy.
- Add and use appropriate alt text for all images, where applicable.
- Check for good colour contrast between the text and the background.
- Check that links are descriptive and easily distinguishable from other text (e.g. underlined and in a different colour).
- Ensure that body text is a reasonable default font size and can be increased by the reader.
- Provide text transcripts for any video material or podcasts.
The following websites also provide some good starting points and quick reference documents:
Where to go for more information
This article also appeared on Corporate Eye as my first guest post!
Posted: March 13th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Accessibility | Tags: Accessibility, corporate, wcag | No Comments »
Twitter has been buzzing about Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox newsletter, in which he says:
“To solve the problems [users experience on mobile devices], websites should provide special mobile versions.”
My initial thought was that it makes sense in some cases. This is from the perspective of corporate, not e-commerce, websites, because this is where my experience lies.
Does it depend on audience need?
While mobile users may wish for the same experience as other users, for some audiences (such as investors) it comes down to wanting access to business-critical information as quickly as possible.
If this is via a simple site with limited navigation, then surely the minimal investment makes sense? An example is the Rolls-Royce dedicated mobile site, which has been around for some years.
Accessible websites already cater for mobiles
However, I’m not an expert in this area and it’s been interesting to read others’ opinions, especially in relation to accessibility. A particularly good article was posted by Iheni (and she should know, because she IS an expert), who basically said absolutely not:
“To me this just extends the problems of walled gardens for users and leads developers down the road of additional and unnecessary work.”
She goes on to highlight the overlap between the W3C’s Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), as discussed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). If a website is accessible, by default it should be practically device independent too.
Corporate websites have more pressing issues
So, if companies’ sites complied to accessibility best practice, in theory mobile users would have fewer problems. I now wonder if some businesses might think that providing a separate site for mobiles would relieve them of some of the responsibility of creating more accessible websites overall?
Although as Graham Charlton at Econsultancy says, perhaps they should ‘improve the usability of their main website[s] before even thinking about mobile’.
I think this debate will run and run, and I’m going to follow it with interest.
Posted: February 17th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Accessibility, Mobile web, Usability | Tags: Accessibility, Mobile web, mwbp, Usability, w3c, wai, wcag | No Comments »
I’ve stumbled across* an interesting website called Universal Usability. It’s the (free) online version of ‘Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers’, a book by Sarah Horton.
Sarah describes universal usability as going ‘one step further’ than accessibility. Not only does it try to make content and functionality accessible to all users, it tries to make them usable too.
The book covers a range of topics, from document structure to interactivity, with lots of useful examples. A number of sections interest me as an online writer, including text, images (alt-text), links and editorial style.
Much of it is common sense and is similar to recommendations made by groups such as the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Other parts are simply best practice in terms of writing good copy for websites.
The site’s a good refresher for online writers and it’s a good place to start if you’re trying to find some basic guidelines.
*I was going to write about information architecture and content. Next time….
Posted: May 8th, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Accessibility, Usability | Tags: Accessibility, Guidelines, Usability | No Comments »
Accessibility 2.0 is a one-day conference looking at practical solutions to accessibility problems in Web 2.0 applications. It is being held in London on Friday 25 April, 2008.
The event is being held by AbilityNet, a charity that helps disabled people use computers and the internet by adapting and adjusting their technology.
The day will cover areas such as user-generated content, tools to watch or avoid and assistive technologies.
There is also a session looking at how to build a social network for disabled users. It will use the Disability Information Portal (DIP) as a case study. This is a Web 2.0 site for disabled people, developed by Leonard Cheshire Disability.
It sounds like a very interesting day – registration closes at 3pm on Wednesday 23 April, so book soon if you want to attend.
Posted: April 19th, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Accessibility, Events | Tags: Accessibility | No Comments »
I was recently asked to take a look at a colleague’s new company website. They’re using a digital agency to redesign the site for a modest, but not insubstantial, sum.
She is new to managing websites and is relying on the agency to provide recommendations regarding site content, including its structure and presentation.
As the project is coming to a close, I was surprised to hear that she had been given no advice regarding, at a basic level, suitable alt tags for images or text layout. This would have taken the agency only a couple of minutes to explain and improved the accessibility of the site for many users. So why didn’t it?
The site was also lacking basic nagivation and orientation features, such as a breadcrumb trail. Which leaves me wondering, how many other digital agencies are charging their clients for basic advice they’re never receiving?
Posted: February 20th, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Accessibility | Tags: , Accessibility, digital agencies | No Comments »
