Presentations
The Train Track Gauge of the Future - Solving Usability Problems with Web Standards Today
1.0
2003 Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0
Toronto Usability Summit
23 May 2003
What are the usability problems today which can be solved by adopting Web standards?
- Why Standards?
- What are Web Standards?
- What are the underlying concepts of Web standards?
- How do these strategies affect usability?
- How do we embrace Web standards?
Why Standards?
- A train track gauge story
Why Standards?
What are Web Standards?
- HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
- eXtensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML)
- Cascading StyleSheets (CSS)
What are the underlying concepts of Web standards?
- semantically meaningful mark-up
- separating content/presentation
How do these strategies affect usability?
What is usability?
- The international standard, ISO 9241-11, provides guidance on usability and defines it as:
The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
Who is the user?
In the life of a Web site, the user (consumer) can be:
- end user
- designer
- developer
- bots/Web agents
- user agents
What are the benefits ...?
- faster downloads / bandwidth savings [Evaluating Elisabeth.com - (with permission from Creative Good)]
- consistency in document structure, display & interface
- maintainability
- accessibility
- extensibility
In short, money and effort
... and the disadvantages?
- (support in software not 100%)
- (learning curve)
These are perceived disadvantages.
How do we embrace Web standards?
- validation
- throwing out pixel-perfect and absolute designs
- ensure your tools support standards
- configure your tools to support standards
- demand standards-compliant sites from your contractors
- define a process to improve the quality of your Web site ["Web Standards Switch"]
Resources
- How to configure Dreamweaver MX to output XHTML http://www.dreamlettes.net/tutorials/xhtmldmx/
- The Web Standards Project -http://www.webstandards.org/
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - http://www.w3.org/
- Netscape Strategy Central - http://devedge.netscape.com/central/strategy/
- Buy standards compliant Web sites - http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/07/WebAgency-Requirements
- Web Standards Switch - http://www.w3.org/QA/2003/03/web-kit