Retailers world over, face customers armed with their internet-enabled mobile devices as they browse the aisles of the shop. On the face of it, this changes the competitive landscape for retailers, as shoppers can compare prices with a store just down the road, or their international rivals to make sure they are getting the best deal. But it’s not just about price – another common behaviour is checking reviews and getting further details on a product.
January is the time of New Year’s Resolutions and let’s face it, you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. If you’re still with me – great! Here’s some ideas you can use to improve your website, app, intranet, [insert new 2012 digital thing here]…
Last week we celebrated our winter Christmas party at the Stamford head office (an annual ritual which usually takes place in July). We love this time of the year, when everyone gets together for a fun filled festive time.
We had curry, we had cocktails, we had Santa, we had sing star! Intermixed with all that, we even managed some creative workshops!
Oh yes, a merry time was had by all – when’s the next one I say?
Recently I’ve been working quite a few website accessibility reviews and I’ve often found myself thrown into the final testing stage of a web project – everyone is running around, testing the system to breaking point, reporting bugs, finishing content creation and frantically fixing things for launch. It’s a crazy, stressful time for teams and it’s not fun to be the one coming in and announcing “… and here’s the web accessibility problems I found.” thus adding to the workload before launch!
The output of web accessibility testing at this late stage is usually a set of recommendations which involves changing the way something has been implemented (code wise – the bricks and mortar of a site) or the way something has been designed (the interior design of a site). When at the testing phase, design and development is probably nearing its close; layout decisions made, core templates and controls built… but then along comes the web accessibility review and guess what… hold your horses we have some problems – time to revisit those earlier phases.
I recently bought some t-shirts from Threadless and I noticed that as I added tee’s to my cart, the cart icon changed. This is how it looked with an empty cart…
Add a tee and he (the cart) talks to you: “FUNK-A-LICIOUS!”
Our resident Accessibility head, Kim C has just written a guest post over on the AGIMO blog about common accessibility fails. Pop on over for a look – it’s an educational and humorous read, written in true Kim style. As Kim very eloquently put’s it…
“Accessibility in the online space is not just about whether a blind user with a screen reader can understand your website. It is about providing universal access and an effective user experience. This caters for the needs of people with hearing impairments, cognitive and motor impairments, but also caters for a much broader audience. It includes the guy who forgot to pack the mouse in his laptop bag and is keyboard-dependent, the lady who broke her glasses and squints an inch from the screen, the tourist who checks his online booking on his mobile, the potential international student trying to understand your instructions, and the kid who lives in rural Australia still waiting for your page to finish loading. Good accessibility = good usability.” [Read the full article]
Kim, how did you know? I am the person who visit’s their dad in the country with a struggling 3g dongle (and out of date laptop), and experiences many pain points just sending an email or reading the news (with images turned off). Yes it is so true, Accessible design really does benefit all of us.
