Andy Kirkwood, Motive wrote:
Hi Kevin,
Nice example, top marks ;).
Sometimes these discussions can get a little abstract and one (real world)
example can help make the discussion less murky.
Geoff, I understand your pain with regard to traditional (print) designers and
the often rocky transition to screen-based design. (Although there's also no
guarantee that a developer is any more aware of interface semantics.) By way of
confession, back in '97 I coded a form using radio buttons as found them more
satisfying aesthetically than checkboxes. Hopefully education or general
awareness means that up-and-coming web designer/developers have more of a
community to draw on.
I often think the root cause of many issues with website usability come down to
the mock-it-up-in-Photoshop-then-hand-it-over-to-the-tech-people-to-be-built
approach. Ideally there would be meaningful dialogue between the brand/visual
and the interface/usability.
Yes I agree. And one of my points is you can't really go blaming
designers for doing this. I'm just looking through some of my
collection of Web Standards/Design References and I can't find any where
that addresses this area explicitly, and that is probably because no one
thought the need to state it explicitly, because who of us has
omniscience to see this phenomena now starting to appear. I didn't. So
if any one is to blame, it is someone like myself, who was aware of this
and I should have maybe contributed this a long time ago, I was on the
WAI GL and ATAG for a few years, a while ago, so I should have added it
to the Techniques knowledge base.
I don't think any designer is to blame, it is just an issue that should
be in the knowledge base, but isn't. But I think it just important to
draw peoples attention to it.
I have for a long time thought of putting up a wiki, because no one
here, IMHO is the holder of all the knowledge. I learn stuff all the
time and am amazed at what everyone can contribute. I just think that a
wiki would probably be the best way to represent the fantastic group
knowledge that is here, but it would be a challenge just to structure it.
--------------
Geoff Deering
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