ford truck Week 6

Agenda

  1. Post CBI topic
  2. learn about web usability and accessibility
  3. CMS
  4. learn about Flash text and audio

Fun

Visit Cow to Cone, a demonstration of how ice cream is made by Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Inc.. This site uses new Flash streaming video, a technology that debuted in December 2003. Overall the interface is very clever and engaging.

Worth visiting occasionally -- the News of the Weird.

I really enjoy listening to and playing music. Do you? I play acoustic guitar and various percussion instruments, not incredibly well, but for many years. I used to play piano, and hope to take it up again soon. Here are some of my favorite recording artists. Maybe we have some of these in common.

Web Usability, and Usability Testing

Why should we learn about usability? Good question. The usability of your web-based instructional products will have an effect on how much your students learn. If the students cannot effectively use your sites and tools, they cannot learn as efficiently and effectively as possible.

To introduce usability, how about a little Dilbert humor. Here's another.

Usability of of all kinds of products is important, and it is also big business. Usability is simply an indication of how usable, understandable, effective, and user-friendly a product or service is.

Explain that again, you say. I will. Here is a formal definition of usability, and then here are four or five other definitions and explanations of what usability is.

Usability of web sites is an important issue, particularly if you are running a web-based business. If your customers cannot easily and effectively use your site, your profits go down. Usability in online instruction is also important.

Jakob Nielsen is well known for developing research-based guidelines on web usability. He publishes a bi-weekly "Alertbox" column on web usability. Visit his site at useit.com and read these Nielsen columns:

and avoid these common mistakes. Bear in mind he is writing about web design for commercial sites such as Amazon and Wal-Mart.

The Usability Professionals Association is just what it's name says. Visit the site to find out what usability experts do.

Now, print and read this interview with Jakob Nielsen from the elearningpost newsletter, about web usability and online instruction. He is pessimistic and his comments are thought-provoking. It is too long to read on the screen.

This site from usability.gov is the best one I've seen with specific, research-based guidelines on improving usability of web sites. Spend around 30 minutes here. If you are looking for more specific web design guidelines, a great source is the Yale Web Style Guide.

For the truly curious, you can continue on to usabilityfirst, a nice site all about web usability, with some definitions, humor, etc.

Web Accessibility

Web accessibility is an important issue for you as a web designer and publisher. Why? Here is a short answer.

Now, print and read this great article from a British web design company explaining what web accessibility is and why it is important.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a group founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. This group helps manage standards for the WWW. Here are the W3C standards for web accessibility. Here is a great article from W3C entitled Auxiliary Benefits of Accessible Web Design.

One of the best known sites for accessibility is the "Bobby Approved" tool for testing web sites. Here you can check any web site for accessibility by typing in the site URL. Try this for two or three web sites you use.

For a truly complete understanding on accessibility, here is a six week course on web accessibility. Now I don't expect you to complete this entire course, but spend some time looking through it. You will find some great accessibility links, resources, and explanations.

CBI and Design Document

Begin planning your CBI and Design Document. Read the assignment description.

Post your proposed topic and a short description here. The topic is due this week. If your topic needs revising I will let you know.