User-centric GUI Design Explained to All

Again with the slashdotting. But this is a continuation of a topic from last week, and here is some links to a few good articles. Enjoy, and I swear, no more slashdot links for at least a month.

Browsers as test platforms

There is an interesting article from accross the pond about how to use browsers to develop and debug html structure, javascript, CSS etc. Read it and discuss below.

Accessible Links

Some guidelines for accessible hyperlinks that I emailed to someone awhile ago…

1. Most important, make sure the actual link is descriptive (not just the surrounding text). Users of screen readers can tab through links and the screen reader reads only the linked content. If the link reads “Click Here” or “Download Now.”
2. If a graphic is really necessary and used for a linked item, be sure that is has an appropriate alt tags
3. Consider use of the title attribute if needed for documents with long titles or documents offered in multiple formats
4. When possible, avoid the use of pop-up windows. If necessary, be sure to inform the user that by clicking on the link they will be leaving the site
5. Add a ‘Skip Navigation’ link at the top of a page to allow users to skip to the content of the page (alternately, consider a ‘Skip Content’ link if needed to access navigation easily)
6. If necessary, add the tabindex function to hyperlinks to specify the order that they tabbed to
7. If links are on the same line, be sure to use a separator

Others?

Are Usability & Security Opposites in Computing?

Not that Slashdot needs the traffic, but they are discussing something that might be of interest to this crowd. “Instinct tells us that computer security and computer usability are inversely proportional to each other…However, there have been plenty of cases where both computer security and computer usability went hand in hand with each other and actually improved together.” They then, without irony, link to a pdf white paper.

Firefox is here!

I’ve used Firefox as my primary browser for development for the past year and it has performed great. I highly recommend it for you and your organization. From mozilla.org:

The wait is over. Firefox 1.0 empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 8 million others and make the switch today � Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose.

For profit, or not for profit

Having attended SXSW Interactive and the IDEAS conference this year, it was interesting to compare how the profit world and the non-profit/government world push design and usability forward. The profit world seems to be motivated by profit and market share, they government world by Section 508. Both have had their successes (wired.com, Library of Congress – American Memories) with modern usable design. But which side is doing better and why? Do you have a better user experience on a commercial site, or a government site?

Online Portfolios

I’m not yet super informed on electronic portfolios, but I had a few thoughts that I wanted to throw out and hopefully get some feedback. If you’re at all new to portfolios you may be asking yourself, “So how exactly is an online portfolio different from a regular old website?” My impression is that in some ways they are not different at all- but there are (or at least can be) some key differences. A good primer is this article titled The Electronic Portfolio Boom: What’s it All About?

Briefly, my understanding is that a website is generally more flexible and gives the portfolio developer more control over layout (not always a good thing in the hands of an amateur). Online portfolios generally have a set framework for content, occasionally a couple of templates to choose from and some even allow students to correlate work they’ve done with a set of learning standards.

One way of setting up an online portfolio that has been discussed is to use an open source blog or other CMS piece of software. Here is an example of a ePortfolio about portfolios done using WordPress, a great article from Stopdesign and some interesting thoughts from the ERADC, ePortfolios and weblogs: one vision for ePortfolio development.

As far as using a specific portfolio software, I’d love to hear what options people know of. One to check out is the Open Source Portfolio Initiative a well developed effort of a lot of universities that seems to be fairly full featured.

All of those resources noted, I think there are big questions to consider about sustainability and effectiveness of portfolios for any group before too much time is invested in developing any kind of comprehensive long-term system.