Kill CAPTCHA
I guess I am not the only person who gets annoyed when I have to enter a string of virtually illegible letters and numbers into a box before submitting a form. CAPTCHA is an example of putting the website owner’s problem on the user. It is not the genuine visitor’s problem if spammers also access to your forms and send junk mail. Do not hold your users to ransom by using inaccessible CAPTCHAs on your contact form.A lot of people have problems with CAPTCHAs. They can be a total barrier for some people with disabilities. Below is a picture of
Why Have Web Designers and Developers Stopped Caring About Accessibility?
Imagine standing outside a shop and watching people enter and exit the shop. You want something inside the shop but you can't get through the door. You could always ask someone to get it for you but you:Don't want to bother other people, Want to browse the items in the shop yourself.This is what it is like for people with some disabilities visiting an inaccessible website.One in five Australians have disabilities so why are web designers and developers no longer designing accessible websites? In 1999 the Sydney Olympic Website became infamous as the world first site to have a successful
User Testing
Designing products for real people, requires frequent testing with a range of people who will use the item. Here is a story about user testing of shampoo and conditioner bottles.Simon and Paul were asked by a cosmetics company to design shampoo and conditioner bottle that not only looked good but were practical to consumers. Their first attempt produced two identical bottles in an attractive green colour.They asked Karen to test the bottles to see how practical they were. Karen needs glasses and she found that the bottles were difficult to tell apart while she was in the shower washing her hair.Paul
I Have a Facebook Business Page, Do I Need a Website
The simple answer to this question is yes but if you want to know why read on.First of all, not everybody has access to Facebook. Some Information Technology departments block their employees from using Facebook. I once volunteered at an Information and Tourist Centre and Facebook was blocked on the computer we used. Sometimes we were asked questions about a particular business and we could not access information about that business because they only had a Facebook page.Facebook is not very accessible for people who are blind or have a visual impairment. There was a discussion about a stainless steel
Check Your Website Performance
Your website may look fine but how good is it really? There are a number of tests you can perform yourself to see how well your site rates for speed, SEO, responsive, and accessibility. SpeedNobody likes a slow website. You will lose visitors if your site does not download quickly. Check the speed of your site at GTMetrix. Pictured above are poor results of page speed check on GTMetrix.The page takes a whopping seven seconds to fully load. The page size is too big. The same site was tested at Google PageSpeed with the following results.The site performs poorly on both mobile
Do You Need a Professional Web Designer?
Do you need a professional web designer or can you just make your own web site? Well do you need a professional painter or can you just paint your own house? The answer of course is you can paint your own house but it will to take time and chances are it won't be as good as if you had hired a professional. The same is true about web design. If you set up a blog for personal use, there is no need to pay for a professional, but if you set up a site for your business and you want good
7 Reasons Why Your Web Designers Don’t do What you ask Them to do
Sometimes you may ask your web designer to do something and she doesn't do it. You may feel frustrated but there could be good (or not so good) reasons why this happens:Surf is up and she has gone surfing. You requested something that was not included in the scope of works. This would require renegotiation of scope and increase in the agreed price. You are requesting something that would take a lot of time and money to accomplish and you may not be able to afford it or you may be working to a deadline. Your Web Designer does not know how
Accessible Contact Forms for WordPress
There are a great many Wordpress plugins for contact forms but it appears that none of them by themselves create accessible forms for people using screen readers. I had assumed that accessibility was a major consideration when creating any plugin for the web but apparently most developers do not even consider it. My search for an accessible form plugin produced two choices. Neither of these were accessible in their initial form.The first form I looked at was Gravity Forms. Unfortunately there is no free version of Gravity Forms so I was unable to try it out. To make Gravity Forms
Newy Web – The New Guys from Newcastle
There is lot to like about Newy Web’s website. The home page features a very clever video that is designed to promote professionalism, friendship and trust. If your connection is a little slow there is an entertaining Rubix Cube loader.The design of the page is clean and well set out with good use of white space and there are no annoying lightbox popups. Newy Web follows principles of good web design with a site that is attractive, responsive and easy to use.The company was set up in 2013 and the team at Newy Webs are young, and passionate about web
One Page Parallax Scrolling Website
A widespread style trend is no proof that it's the best or most intuitive idea for your UI "UX and We Design Master Course" by Joe NatoliWhat is Parallax Scrolling? The one-page Parallax Scrolling web pages seems to be all the rage. On these sites the background appears to moves slower than the foreground when the visitor scrolls down the page. This effect gives the website a sense of depth.The web site "Jess and Russ" is a good example where parallax scrolling adds interest to the site and tells a story as visitors scroll down the page. "Muffi" is a site with parallax scrolling