Knight Talks Tech

Author: John

  • Nielsen’s views

    Jakob Nielsen – five concepts: Learnability – system ease of use. Efficiency – how well system maps interface to user interaction. Memorability – how easy it is for users to remember how to do something. Errors – how well errors are handled and prevented. Satisfaction – user satisfaction with system. Top ten web design mistakes…

  • Design for usability

    User Centred Design – identify users needs & requirements. Define purpose of website. Perform User Requirements Analysis – define users assumptions & future behaviour on site. Implement these steps when designing & producing objects & functions. Become familiar with general rules & guidelines for website usability such as: Web Site Usability Handbook by Mark Pearrow…

  • Usability

    Generic term – design features enable=ing something to be user-friendly. Measure of quality of user experience with product or system such as: website mobile device software application Usability problem WRT WWW: Millions of users with different skills, knowledge, experience and expectations International & multicultural make-up of users & websites Billions of websites Tens of thousands of…

  • Accessibility validation tools

    508 accessibility suite for Dreamweaver (download free from macromedia) available at http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/accessibility/508standards.html Markup test available at http://validator.w3.org/ Wave free accessibility check at http://wave.webaim.org/

  • Designing for accessibility

    Compliant websites do not have to be dull. Do not rely on colour to convey information. Text colour should contrast background colour. Font size defined in CSS should be customisable by user. Important images should have a meaningful ‘alt’ attribute & description. Provide text-based alternative to audio or video content. Content requiring specific plug-in should…

  • Guidelines

    There are several resources regarding accessibility guidelines, including: W3C: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 14 guidelines with checkpoints available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/ Full checklist available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html WCAG 2.0 (draft) available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ More guidelines available at http://usableweb.com/topics/000262-0-0.html

  • The Need to Design for Accessibility/Usability

    Web accessibility –  “people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web”. W3C provide guidelines through Web Accessibility Initiative (WIA). Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) – UK law – accessibility issues. Organisation can be subject to serious legal liabilities for contravening law. DDA part III…

  • Summarising the PARC Principles

    Don’t be afraid to create your design with plenty of blank space. Also make sure you have plenty of white space between elements and visual units. Don’t be afraid to make words very large or very small. Don’t be afraid to speak loudly or to whisper. Contrast is an essential element of good design. Don’t be…

  • Principles of User Interface Design

    PARC principles – four basic principles do UI design: Proximity Alignment Repetition Contrast Proximity Group related items together – one cohesive, visual unit. Non-related items should not be grouped together – causes confusion. If more than 3 to 5 items on page, try to group elements. Don’t spread separate elements around corners or middle of…

  • Check for folders and files where access is denied with Powershell

    The following script is from another blog that was slightly adapted by someone who left a comment there: $errors=@() gci -recurse -Path “C:\test” -ea SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable +errors | Out-Null $errors.Count $errors | select -expand categoryinfo | select reason,targetname | export-csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter “;” ErrorList.csv I created a folder on the root of my C: drive…