Thats an excellent read James, well first my name is MJ I never introduced myself before and just jumped in discussions straight so Hi I am from London and I work at http://www.biginteractive.co.uk/ as a frontend designer.
Now back to the matter in hand , this situation is certainly is out of the designers / developers hand, its all up to the client and his/her target audience , company specifications, project brief branding etc, however developers could take that extra step to ensure quality and adherence to available guidelines in Usability / Accessibility. But end of the day if the client wants a specific design features which is for some reason can't be done while ensuring guidelines kept, I think developers are obliged to keep the client aware. On 8/14/07, James Jeffery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Good Evening. > > Does Or Should Design Out-Weight Usability and/or Accessibility? > > Ive been faced with a number of situations during development on a number > of projects > that has forced me make a choice you have all probably had to make > Usability/Accessibility > over design. > > I know Usability and Accessibility are very different subjects, but they > are both just as > important. The users experience should be a good one, its sort of like a > shop keeper or > store manager, he has to make sure both non-disabled and disabled shoppers > are happy > when shopping, otherwise they wont come back. The shop keeper also would > have to > try to make a disabled persons shopping trip a good one, because after > all, disabled > shoppers deserve the same access as non-disabled shoppers. > > Bringing it back to web development, personally i think that a disabled > user deserves > to browse the internet with the same level of support and access as non > disabled > users. > > And back to the question, should design come before > Usability/Accessibility? > > Sometimes you can do both, such as Image Replacement, or you can offer > visually > impaired users a version of your site with high contrasting colors. But > there are times > when designers and developers do things either without thinking about > disabled users > or thinking 'Stuff them, i want my hi-end graphical interface on my site' > or > 'Stuff them, i have no time to make it accessible' or even 'Stuff them, > the fonts need > to me tiny so my design looks good'. > There are many more possibilities for a developer/design to not bother or > not choose > accessibility first. > > My take on all this is basically, if you have to make a choice and there > is no > way around it, think about your users first, not yourself and what you > want, because > you are not the one using the site. > > There is often times when things are just not possible, people insist on > hacking around > it, which often causes more problems and needs more hacks. But if > something cant > be done, leave it out, and wait. > In the past, with CSS1 a lot of things were not possible, which later > became possible > with newer versions. > > Web Standards, Accessibility and Usability needs to be put right at the > top of the > list, way before design. Focus on the users and the people, and it will > help to > create and bring the internet up to a better standard. Im not sure if > there is a law > in every country regarding Accessibility but there needs to be one. > > This is just my take on things, but i would love to know what everyone > else thinks. > I'm in the middle of writing an article for a magazine, some views from > both > ends of the scale would be great. Its an important topic i feel. > > Thanks Guys. > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ******************************************************************* -- http://www.Mjama.com ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
