Industry News—Web Site Makeovers
By Raha Naddaf, Staff Writer
Five
Thoughts About Web Site Redesigns
After going though a complex redesign for one of his web sites,
contributing writer Ben Bradley sat down with Stephanie Diamond,
president of Digital Media Works, Inc., to understand the web site
redesign process. Diamond commented, “For larger companies,
everyone from management on down is short on staff. The last thing
they want to do is ‘assign’ themselves another big task.
As long as the webmaster keeps abreast of the technical problems,
marketing and sales are looking elsewhere to generate revenue.”
Source: Darwin
Changing
the Face of Web Surfing
"If you want a job done properly, do it yourself," the
saying goes. Web users frustrated by poorly designed sites are increasingly
applying that logic to the Net. Many who are fed up with high-profile
design mistakes are taking it upon themselves to publicly correct
conspicuous corporate faux pas, right under embarrassed proprietors'
noses. These volunteer makeover consultants receive neither a paycheck
nor permission for their efforts. Oxford University math graduate
Matthew Somerville was only trying to do fellow movie fans a favor
when, flummoxed by the "highly inaccessible" web site
for Britain's Odeon cinema chain, he decided to redesign the service.
Out went the JavaScript, cookies and confusing menus that had muddled
many visitors looking for movie times. Somerville hosted a slimmed-down,
simplified imitation on his own server, which garnered praise from
many users.
Source: Wired News
Web
Functionality Standard Favours Visually Impaired Users
Alfresco Design is drawing the attention of the web industry by
announcing a new web functionality standard. In conjunction with
this, the company reports the successful usage of a revolutionary
solution that will incredibly facilitate the access of blind and
visually impaired people to the Internet . The Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) technology will have a large contribution to the optimization
of site management and web site accessibility. The groundbreaking
CSS technology threatens traditional methods of building web sites
through the use of tables. The problem with this method is that
it emphasizes the priority of the page's appeal by requiring the
tables to be laid out. This implies the complete incompatibility
between tables and screen readers such as JAWS, which hampers the
visually impaired in their efforts to access desired web pages.
Source: Fate Back (also see http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2002/wired-interview/
)
Return
on Investment for Usability
Ease of use doesn't come from wishful thinking. It comes from conducting
systematic usability engineering activities throughout the project
lifecycle. This is real work and costs real money, though not as
much as some people fear. You can conduct simple forms of user testing
in a few days and gain extensive insights into both user behavior
and recommended design improvements. Still, before most people will
commit to a lifecycle approach to usability, they want to know what
it will cost and what they will gain.
Source: Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox
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