Reading Time: 9 minutes Why is alternative image content so difficult? In this article I analyse and update W3C’s WAI Alt Decision Tree for everyday human consumption.
Web Components can be Accessible!
Reading Time: 3 minutes When inspecting products for inclusive code strategies, I regularly run across custom HTML tags, or ‘extended’ HTML belonging to web components. They are usually comprised of DIV and SPAN soup and a style block. ARIA labelling is more often than not omitted and fixed pixel units are common, so their responsiveness is limited. The explanation […]
‘Liquid’ DELETE animation demo
Reading Time: 5 minutes Sometimes I get so hooked up on inclusive design—and rightly—that I can overlook the strategies that take an OK user interaction (UI) to delight. Following on from my starter-project on UI SVG animations, I found the following demonstration that exports Sketch PNG files into After Effects. Forgiving that the YouTube comments capture my own ill-ease […]
Utility-first CSS
Reading Time: < 1 minute During dotCSS 2019, Sarah Dayan made a compelling—if, in summary a flawed argument “In Defense of Utility-First CSS”. There’s certainly room for us to reflect and also to counter with some concerns. Sarah argues that utility-first has advantages over our grooming toward semantic CSS and its enhancement with BEM CSS writing styles. These add weight […]
Technical Instructions and Video
Reading Time: 2 minutes The boy has bought a suspension lowering kit. Its instructions are a link to a YouTube video. That’s cool, and also a little impractical when your hands are full and covered in grease? How does this relate to user experience (UX)? Well, the suppliers thought of their inexpert persona needing orienting to the task and […]
Animation and Keyframes
Reading Time: 4 minutes This was a fun hour’s project this morning. On a past web page project, I used the viewport width to move multiple backgrounds on expanding and contracting the browser window. A yacht floated serenely across the Adriatic past islands floating on the azure waters in a changing perspective – in my mind. Anyway, the client […]
To title abbr or not?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The following code snippet caught my attention when following posts by Chris Coyier and Eric Bailey diminishing objections to the abbreviation of accessibility to “a11y”. Abbreviation <abbr>a11y</abbr> There is no title=”” attribute within the abbr element. I was groomed to always include it. The Correct HTML? A little research including the WHATWG Living Standard (September, […]
Accessible Clock? Almost…
Reading Time: 3 minutes I adapted a coded clock from W3C Schools (home of the accessible clock canvas) on the Learning Too website’s Articles page. It’s a fun piece of bling drawn into an HTML5 canvas using JavaScript. Online Tutorials YouTube channel demonstrates a lighter-weight HTML, CSS, and JavaScript clock. Both clocks lack inclusive design. Any assumption that our screen […]
Modern Semantic HTML vs. DIV and SPAN Soup
Reading Time: 3 minutes Our visual designer plans a section with a heading and four numbered areas to describe four steps or areas to explore in our product. You know the thing. In this scenario: The code strategy is not specified. The developers use some CMS or framework or other, which makes their lives easy and adds weight to […]
Exasperations of accessible experiences
Reading Time: 4 minutes Accessibility is treated by my industry as you would treat a stone chip stuck in your vehicle’s brakes. You can hear it squealing as it grinds into your imagination of a deeply scarred disk. You cannot identify which wheel is affected from inside the comfort of the vehicle. You select reverse gear and go back […]
Major Research Project Update
Reading Time: < 1 minute Find out why I updated my MRP to research our users’ comparable and equitable experience of accessibility. Go to the MRP section to learn all.
A Delightful Slider?
Reading Time: < 1 minute Josh Collinsworth’s Likert-based slider input styles a range of emoji in place of the usual grades. It may bring a piece of visual delight to our feedback survey forms? A measure of satisfaction and delight? The 12 emoji that display on the slider button range from, “swear I’m angry” (🤬) to “love it” (😍). The […]
An Accessible App Assignment
Reading Time: 12 minutes This is a ramble from which to launch ideas for an assignment. You can pass on it if you like. I’m scoping an app for an assignment. Assignment From the off, this project must meet set assignment criterion and inventing a new app isn’t one of them. A new app simply provides the vehicle on […]
Research content and information
Reading Time: 5 minutes Our latest submission covered information architecture and content as a part of Module 3, the psychology of UX. My preliminary research was included as an Appendix and is included here for (my) future reference. Research: content and information ”…You need to have a good understanding of the content before you even think of tackling the […]
Do storyboards tell the whole story?
Reading Time: 6 minutes There’s an example storyboard in Preece, Rogers, Sharp’s (2015) Interaction textbook that held my attention. In less than a moment I recognised it is a very poor example. Sure, it is intentionally simple and it is also unintentionally of poor quality. It exemplifies why UX design can fail to reach the levels of delight we […]
An interception survey reflection
Reading Time: 2 minutes Recruiting participants for field research by “door stopping”, or interception as they perform and behave in a native environment is an opportunity to observe, enquire, and record real-world and spontaneous experiences, behaviours, and attitudes. Supporting enquiry strategies may include overt observation, surveys, and semi-structured interviews. Resulting data may be quantitative or qualitative as designed. Chisnell […]
What is the Delightful User Experience?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Delight is a subjective and emotional reaction to stimuli. “Delightion” of customers is important to our enterprise where Willis (2015) states that it costs six to seven times more to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones and 55% of customers will pay more for better services. Fessenden (2017) ties delight to Walter’s (2011) […]
A little research post
Reading Time: 4 minutes Research is a considered activity that aims to make an original contribution to knowledge. (Dawson, 2005). The trick to successful user research is, “to know what role user research plays, which methods of research to utilise, and how it benefits your team each step along the way.” (Hayes, 2015). Quality Triangulating popular research methods and […]
Strategy: Universal Experience
Reading Time: 3 minutes The days of the product-focused UX silo habit must be numbered? It tends to be art-directed and under resourced by well intentioned and under qualified practitioners. Universal Experience breaks free of the product silo and explores your enterprise’s existing and future business community – a World-reaching business strategy! So, what do we do? It sounds […]
A between studies UI update
Reading Time: 10 minutes Prototype v.3. is now online in Beta. Problem I created an online bookshelf to help me find and copy citations and references to paste into study documents. It works well when considering that I am not a developer and the page is a prototype. In class, our tutor Stephan gave us a 50-min app design […]