Accessibility, Usability & Compliance
Accessibility, Usability & Compliance
Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal.
Source: Wikipedia
Some things have worked on the web and some things haven't and have fallen by the wayside and large popular sites like amazon.co.uk, bbc.co.uk and cnn.com have to a certain extent defined usability.
At sdesign1 the following two quotes help to keep us on the straight and narrow regarding usability:
Ultimately, users visit your web site for its content. Everything else is just the backdrop. The design is there to allow people access to the content.
Source: Jacob Nielsen.
Flowers are nice, but don't put them in your doorway.
Source: anon.
In other words, content and functionality are a priority for us. The web is a user interface and has to be usable. This isn't to say we don't appreciate that commercial companies need to ensure their web site effectively conveys their brand. However, a good brand is not effectively promoted by an unusable site. By and large, users will want to find something on your site that is useful to them and you probably have as much of their attention as you would of a passing motorist. That is why layout and navigation has to be clear, consistent and intuitive.
We would be the first to admit, that if we do err, then we err on the side of usability and accessibility. Put simply, we want sites to be easily used by as many people as possible.
