Web Design & Usability

Advances in technology has made the web more accessible to people with disabilities of many different types.  If you are designing a website do not forget to design your site to include everyone.  How annoying would it be to navigate to an E-Commerce website only to be unable to purchase products or services one you get there?

Understand Disabilities
     Its best to gain and understanding of the different disabilities, how they affect users, and some of the best practices around designing a website for accessibility.

     Visual Impairment

• Total Blindness
• Reduced Vision
• Obstructed
• Colorblindness

     Visual Impairments are generally considered one of the more difficult disabilities for web designers to account for.  For total blindness having an auditory option is a nice touch.  This lets the design communicate the content of the page and also if necessary what the visual aspects of the page were intended for.  Using text is very important, make sure that those Alt tags are not empty!
     Colorblindness is not as obvious...Its easy to design something, think that it looks great and call it a day.  However someone that is colorblind may have a hard time seeing the text on the page or even worse may not even notice it.  For some tools that may help make your website a bit more friendly to visual impairments check out Visual Impairment Tools.

A Few Other Impairments / Disabilities

• Mobility Impairment
• Dexterity Impairment
• Auditory Impairment
• Cognitive Impairment

     Mess around with your computer without the mouse or browse to an instructional video on how to create an HTML form but turn your sound off, easy right?  Accessibility can be one of the most difficult challenges for web designers.  There are many tools, programs, special hardware, and standards that can make the task a bit less daunting.  The most important step is to understand that these users must be accounted for and to include accessibility as part of your web design plan.