Issue 19 | February 2008
Four wonders of the web
Using analytics to reveal the secrets of the Internet.
Studying the silver surfers
Foviance's research into how the over 60s use the web.
Usability vs accessibility: resolving the conflict
What should you do when usability and accessibility clash?
Accelerating Contextual Inquiry
Reducing the time needed for ethnographic research.
Swimming the channels
The customer's perspective of multi-channel is often different to the client's.
Contact Foviance:
14 Bonhill Street
London EC2A 4BX
Tel: +44 (0) 8450 546 500
Usability vs accessibility: resolving the conflict
p> Accessibility and usability improvements often go hand in hand. Having clear link text, well defined headlines and short labels for forms will make a site easier for everyone to use, whatever devices they browse with.
Sometimes there can be conflicts, though. Changes made to improve usability for the typical visitor can damage the experience for users of assistive devices. When the cursor is automatically placed in a search box to speed up the process for those searching for specific information, it can be confusing if you can't see where the focus field is and expect to start reading from the top of the page. Pull down menus for navigation, which automatically refresh the page when they change, can cut out a click for users of conventional browsers but can prove confusing for users of assistive devices. Often, the screen will divert to the first page when the user tries to scroll through the options using the keyboard.
Enforcing accessibility at the expense of usability isn't the answer, though. Following the accessibility guidelines slavishly can result in ugly pages that are hard to navigate. Websites must be attractive and easy for everyone to use, so every conflict between usability and accessibility requirements should be seen as an opportunity to find a creative solution.
Designers don't want big ugly 'skip link' buttons at the top of a webpage, which might be what the guidelines appear to encourage. But those links can be hidden so they only become visible when users of assistive devices tab on to them.
To take the example of the pull down menu, the conventional wisdom is that a 'go' button should be used to trigger the page change after the user has selected an option. That's a good compromise: a sighted person can quickly figure out how to make the page change if nothing happens when the option is selected. But it's a compromise, nonetheless, and there is a better solution. Cameron Adams, a Web Technologist based in Australia has created an accessible pull down menu that uses Javascript to provide two-click navigation for mouse users without compromising usability for keyboard users.
There are few conflicts that others haven't already faced: if you search online, you can often find an innovative solution. But if not, you should see an apparent conflict as an opportunity to be creative. In the same way that changes made for usability should not affect the site's accessibility, modifications made to improve accessibility should not make its usability worse.
If you'd like to subscribe to the Foviance newsletter, then drop us a line at info@foviance.com