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.

Whilst reviewing web accessibility is encouraged at any stage, if done too late it’s…

• not good for team morale – time has already been spent creating the site, only to be given a list of rework in order to meet accessibility compliance
• not efficient for the business – increased redesign and development times
• possible you could release a non-compliant site

Web accessibility should be considered at all stages so teams do not have to do complex retrofits and revisit work already considered complete. Make the most of the design and development phases and work iteratively; it isn’t a linear process. Designers and developers will most likely need to work together when a design cannot be completely realised in an accessible way. Get back to the drawing board and have a plan of action and most importantly, fail early so things can be fixed.

Most projects go through the following phases: design, build, test, deploy. We need to see web accessibility considerations happening throughout these processes (with feedback loops for iterations) and an additional phase of governance to ensure content authors are maintaining the level of accessibility on the site and not creating new problems.

Here are some ideas for each phase I would like to see teams consider when approaching web projects…

Design

• Colour and contrast
• Typography, font selection, line height
• Affordance, button design, labels
• Relationships, size, shape, position, direction
• Tone, language, feedback and prompting
• Consistency

Build & Test

• Progressive enhancement
• Flexible and responsive layouts
• Use native HTML behaviours and semantics
• Explicit relationships (WAI-ARIA and HTML5)
• Iterative approach to testing with WCAG 2.0 tools and assistive technologies, which involves the design team

Governance

• Author guides for writing new content to maintain integrity of accessibility attained

So that’s my few pence worth on how to take an integrated approach to accessibility and help minimise rework at the last hurdle. Our industry has done well at ensuring we consider usability along the design and development journey, but somehow web accessibility falls off the radar and we need to ensure it’s put back on our agendas. :)

Scary figure? We thought so too. We consider this a call to arms for Australian industry to see the potential in m-Commerce and think about how you can incorporate a mobile element into your UX strategy.

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A full text transcript is also available.

If you’re not sure how to get started, you might like to start with our ten tips for mobile websites.

Request the full Australian Business and the Mobile Web 2011 report.

If you’re a retailer, this year might be your last chance to take advantage of your online and mobile channels. If you don’t, you’re going to miss out.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that a record number of Australians did their Christmas shopping online last year. More  Australians chose online to discover interesting products, conduct research, avoid crowds, and save both time and money.

How many of the gifts you received this year were bought online and how many did you buy from websites? How many were shipped from overseas?  How much of your christmas planning, for flights, accommodation, restaurants, or services did you start on the internet this year? The answer to these questions may demonstrate this is the year online shopping will boom in Australia. As eBay’s Global Chief Executive, John Donohoe, said, last year was an “inflection point for shopping” with online and offline retail now “blending into a seamless, multichannel world” as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.

Australian retailer’s websites won’t just be measured against local competitors, but also against international retailers. According to Paypal Australia, 30% of its transactions this December were for overseas retailers, the remaining spend stayed in Australia. Most consumers will be basing their decisions on two main differentiators: price and experience. I have no intention of telling established retailers how to compete on price, but cost isn’t the only reason people choose a retailer. Consumers also appreciate being able to find what they want quickly, and to complete the process rapidly and without confusion or uncertainty. Do you know how your business will compete on customer experience?

For example, some often overlooked questions retailers might ask themselves are:

• Can my customers easily compare and make informed choices about their purchases from my website?
• Do I have good, detailed information, including high-quality images which can substitute for being able to pick up and hold a product, to help shoppers make a decision?
• Have I ensured that, once ordered, I can confidently deliver the purchase in the time specified to the customer, and my business can handle any issues that may arise without causing the customer any stress?
• Can my customers use my website with their smartphone? With up to half of Australians owning a smartphone, and at least a quarter of Christmas shopping-related Google searches coming from mobiles this year, are you excluding significant number of customers withy your mobile site?

Whatever it is, you need to consider your business from your customer’s point of view, and concentrate on your customer experience. Your international competitors have already done it. For example, ASOS, a uk clothing retailer created an Australian distribution centre to cater to their second biggest market. easing flow of product and service within Australia. It is clear the internet is not a “fad” nor a waste of time for savvy retailers. This may be your last chance to catch up.

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]…

Trim the fat

Did your website over-eat last year? Well now’s the time to put it on a ‘word’ diet! People are browsing on the go, becoming more demanding and less patient to wait. You’ve just got to have a lean, stable site! Here’s how you can shape up right now…

The tech

How long does your website take to load? 3 seconds? 5 seconds? Find out right now, by using YSlow and see how your pages are performing.  And don’t forget to check on mobile too. I’m sure you’ll find things you can do to minimise the load time and get optimised. Do the tests and challenge yourself to fix up as much as you can. Remember to keep the site optimised – that means all year round folks! You can’t just visit the gym once; every new piece of content should follow the regime.

The content

How much content do you have on an average page? Is it busting at the seams with text competing for attention? Open up a popular page on your site now and have a look. Go on… cut and paste your content into a text editor and do a word count. Now half that number. That’s your target! Rinse and repeat for the worst offending pages on your site.

The design

Has your navigation grown out of control? Can visitors find their way around your site with ease? Go grab yourself someone off the street (or down the corridor) and find out. Sit them down and ask them to do a common task, sit back, watch and learn. How’d it go, not so good? Could be time for some Information Architecture loving and a few rules for content authors to keep the site organised. Start by finding out how bad the problem is, does the site need a new structure or just a clean up? Some usability testing can help find this out.

I want more resolutions!

If you are keen as mustard for more things to do this year, consider taking an integrated approach to accessibility. Learn something new, by coming along to an event near you, or go for a personal trainer approach and let Stamford help you shape up for 2012.

Happy New Year folks! Here’s to many a faster, leaner and usable websites everywhere! :)

By offering a stress free end-to-end experience, you can help to build brand loyalty with existing customers and increase revenue by reaching out to a broader range of customers who cannot access your physical store. But what happens when a retailer doesn’t get the end-to-end Christmas shopping experience right?

BigW has recently come under fire from angry customers after many customers have failed to receive presents they have purchased online or lay-buys that were paid off in-store or online. Customers have taken to social media channels such as Twitter and BigW’s Facebook page to vent their frustration, with a number of customers noting that delivery of overseas purchases were much faster.

@degan1970 on Twitter: "Tried to shop online with Aussie retailers - never again. @bigw purchase on Dec 1 still not delivered. OS stuff arrived last week. #fail"

@riebeee on Twitter: "@sunriseon7 so not cool BigW don't offer a service if you can't deliver! #xmasfail #sun7"

A customer wrote on the BigW’s facebook page: “The comments directing people to go and do their shopping in person are really disappointing me. Many of us live in rural or isolated areas where there are no shops. The internet has been a God-send for us, when it works. There are also those of us with Autistic/Asperger’s kids, who know better than to take them to the shops. We all have our own reasons for shopping online, and it is the responsibility of the service provider (in this case Big W) to honour the service that they offer.”

Lesson learned? You have to consider and design for the whole shopping experience, not just the website. While it looked like BigW has spent quite a bit of effort on the online shopping and checkout process, it seems that the supporting off-line services such as the delivery and lay-by processes did not have the same level of consideration applied, particularly where the business processes involved multiple channels and 3rd party organisations.

Remember, the retail experience is not just about the website. It’s about providing a stress free end-to-end experience for the customer, no matter which channel the customer chooses.

As always, we found the answer was in asking the right questions: Who are you dealing with, why do they think that way, and what can you do about it?  Immediately a flood of stories, hilarious situations and tactics burst forth – and with that, the Attitude Adjusters card pack was born.

Inspired by our own experiences and beautifully illustrated by our wonderful friend Supriya Perera, the Attitude Adjusters are reminders of what techniques you can keep up your sleeve (yes, yes… pun intended) when dealing with that peculiar challenge of having to convince people to do something they don’t necessarily want to do. We see it all the time – overworked and downtrodden teams working hard to promote the accessibility cause in their organisation and grimacing as they get beaten back with simple statements of “too busy”, “can’t do that”, or even “but we don’t have any blind users!” We’ve been them, worked alongside them, and we recognise that haunted look easily. When constantly facing this kind of opposition, it’s hard not to get exhausted.

Well! Nothing prepared us for the community’s overwhelming response – to date you have given us ideas about more characters to include, more situations to discuss and even complete sets of rules on how to turn this into a full-on strategy game! We’re loving the ideas and the enthusiasm that is flowing through. We were heartened to find that everyone saw a bit of themselves in these cards, and recognised the situations and techniques so easily. More importantly that the cards could be useful to you.

We’ll be making a downloadable version available soon, so keep checking this site and one day there will be a download link somewhere on this page. We’ll be adding a number of blogs on the topics to discuss the challenges of cultural change and accessibility (we’ll be updating the links below as we go):

• Instruct the Ignorant
• Appeal to the Apathetic
• Deal with Denial
• Begin the Bargaining
• Encourage the Educated & Aware
• Commend Commitment
• Cheer on the Champions

We hope you enjoy them as much as we did creating them!

“Our intranet doesn’t need to be accessible because we don’t employ any blind people.” Our consultants hear this catchphrase all too often in Australian businesses. It is an excuse that encapsulates some of the denial and hopelessness that businesses feel about making systems like company intranets accessible. In any business, poor accessibility of company software and systems can be just as much of a barrier online as a lack of physical aids such as lifts or ramps.

Excuses aside, internal business systems like intranets, reporting tools and email directly aid workforce productivity. Making these systems accessible has collateral benefits beyond just allowing a wider workforce to use them. Much of the workforce that would not be considered ‘disabled’ actually benefits too – from things as simple as making text easier and faster to read on screen – and that can mean productivity gains across the board.

‘Disabilities’ can be everyday situations

Consider the following people:

• Alex, a worker wanting to watch the CEO’s video message in a quiet office
• Janet, a sales person on the road with limited internet connectivity
• Greg, marketing executive trying to post an urgent media release while on a train with no space for a mouse
• Dave, an HR officer whose sight isn’t what it used to be is trying to read a company report

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredcamino/4698263021/

These people would not be considered traditionally ‘disabled’, but they would definitely benefit from accessible systems. Let’s say their employer spent the effort making their systems accessible:

• Alex is able to read closed captions on the CEO’s video, so he doesn’t disturb other workers in the quiet office – something that also benefits people with hearing impairments.
• Janet benefits from the fact that the intranet has streamlined, standards compliant code that loads fast, despite her poor connection – a fact that is critical to compatibility with many accessible aids like screen readers for the vision impaired
• Greg knows that he can navigate through his media release authoring tool with just his keyboard – something that is also critical for people with motor disabilities
• Dave loves that the company report uses a decent sized font with adequate contrast – something that also benefits people with vision impairments

The list goes on for collateral benefits of this kind. It is useful to think of the ways in which we can be temporarily impaired by our situations at work, and that accessibility is about trying to reduce the time we are unable to work effectively. Add to that the fact that we have an ageing workforce, and the collateral benefits of accessible systems dwarf the direct benefits to people we might consider to be ‘disabled’.

Accessible systems work better with new technologies

Another winner in the accessible business is one that most people don’t expect – early adopters. IT ain’t what it used to be in business – the days of standard devices are fading and businesses are having to respond to workers who require increasing flexibility in their IT devices and services. Blackberries, iPhones, tablets and other devices have become must-haves for the sales and executive side of the business. Much of web accessibility deals with making code able to be ‘read’ by a wide range of devices beyond the desktop PC. A system that is built with screen readers and other disability aids in mind is likely to have cleaner, leaner code that we’re seeing is much more future proof for devices like mobiles and tablets.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/6005661540/

Stamford loves having this conversation

We appreciate the effort and passion of individuals in the community who make the case for universal access clearer and harder to ignore for Australian businesses. In government, the National Transition Strategy is looming large in the short term, and in the private sector the ability to employ a wider workforce from an ageing population are pressures that are pushing us in the right direction.

We think the move to accessible systems is not just about the ethics of every Australian being able to have a fair go, it’s also just good business sense.

With the silly season approaching, many of us are scraping out the last shrapnel from our wallets and turning on the bargain radar. eBay is a great place to get a bargain, but for one of the best known sites on the internet, it astounds me that they haven’t nailed the usability of auctions yet. People just don’t get eBay’s automatic bidding system. It’s a pretty big usability hole considering it is a site almost solely based around bidding.

I’m going to go through four steps of getting an eBay bargain while looking at the usability of eBay-ing along the way.

What’s this proxy bid thingy anyway?

eBay has an automatic bid or ‘proxy bid’ system that effectively means you only need to put one bid on in a whole auction, and if you win, you’ll automatically get the cheapest price under what you bid. Every eBay bid is a proxy bid – it’s nothing ‘special’. The system bids in little increments for you, automatically, but never bids more than it needs to – only enough to just beat the second highest bidder and no more.

Sounds perfect right? So why do so many people waste their time, dipping in and out and making dozens of ‘manual’ bids? eBay explains proxy bidding in the site help, but I’d say only a very small proportion of people (a) bother to read it or (b) understand it. Help text is the perfect hiding place for such important information – surely they should just tweak the interface design to make the proxy bidding concept obvious?

More on that below, but first a Christmas present for you sometime eBay-ers: tips on how to get a bargain with minimum effort.

1. Find out how much the product is actually worth

Put aside your dreams of 99c televisions for a minute, and take a moment to find out the actual value of the thing you’re bidding for. For new items, this might be as easy as a Google search or a visit to your favourite internet store. Some eBay merchants even make this easy for you by listing the same thing in a non-auction with a ‘Buy it now’ price so you won’t even have to leave the website. For second hand or unique items, you might need to guess – what’s not a bargain, but a fair price for it?

I recently bought a set of solar powered Christmas lights for a tree in my backyard (no need to run power cables outside!) and I’ll use them as an example. They were up for auction at 99c, but also listed separately as a ‘Buy it now’ for $50.

2. Figure out what kind of bargain you’d be willing to accept

Now that you know the ‘real’ price, what kind of bargain are you looking for? if you saw it in a store for 50% off would you buy it? What about 10% off? Or perhaps it’s a once in a lifetime thing like tickets to a show that you’d be willing to pay, say, 20% more for?

This takes a bit of discipline to get right, but remember you’re thinking of any bargain price up to the price you set – you won’t necessarily pay that much. So for example, I reckon 10% off is OK for my Christmas lights, considering I’d buy them at full price if I lose the auction anyway. That means my highest bargain price is $45 – I won’t pay more than that.

3. Place your bid

Now, if you like, you can place your maximum bid in eBay and watch the ‘proxy bid’ system at work. Just put in the amount you figured out in step 2 – for me, it was $45. The auction came to a close, and I ended up paying $37.84, around 25% off! Bargain.If you’re really tricky, wait until the closing minutes of the auction (or use a ‘bid sniper’) but this really only works against so called ‘incremental bidders’ who don’t get the automatic bidding system and over-bid what they are really willing to pay. Whether you choose to snipe or bid manually, the person willing to pay the most wins – there is no ‘magical’ advantage in sniping, despite what they claim.

4. Revel in the glory of a bargain, or the comfort that you didn’t overspend

If all went well, by setting your limit early, you only bid once and beat all those other chumps who were spending their days putting on dozens of bids at 50c a pop. If you lost, it means someone else was willing to pay more than you were so you wouldn’t have won anyway. That’s your time and money saved – plus a bargain to boot! – Any time, it’s my pleasure.

So why all the manual bidding?

Basically, if the eBay interface had a little bit of clever UX work done to it, I’m sure it would be possible to explain this concept through the design of the bid page without the need for users to delve into the help section. Let’s just say for a moment that everyone follows the tips above and eBay redesigned the bid page to get across the idea of proxy bidding so that everyone just ‘gets’ it.

• Everyone would only need to bid once
• The highest bidder pays only a fraction more than the second highest bid, which is a fair deal for both buyer and seller
• People never pay more than they are really willing to pay
• The eBay UX team emerge in design glory, having solved a difficult UX problem and bettered the lives of everyone. Rejoice!

Everyone wins except… eBay.

If you understand proxy bidding, you’ll probably bid more responsibly

Most people just don’t get eBay’s ‘proxy bid’ system, and when combined with a little gambling-style recklessness, many end up spending more than they wanted to win an auction. If you ‘get’ proxy bidding, you have to force yourself to realistically analyse the value of the item, and set a well considered limit to your spending. Not having gotten caught up in the excitement of the auction, you’d be less likely to make a rash decision and go over your limit (imagine if people did this with the pokies – we’d have no sporting teams left!). In a way, understanding proxy bidding would be bad for sellers because many items would be sold cheaper.

If you understand proxy bidding, you’ll spend less time on eBay

If you take the time at the start to set your ‘real’ maximum bid and rely on the proxy bidding system to do the work, then there is no need to keep going back to eBay. This means less time hanging around on eBay… and less time noticing other things you might want to buy, which is ultimately bad for eBay’s business.

Explaining proxy bidding might take the fun out of the user experience

So perhaps the proxy bidding ‘help page’ is as far a solution as this particular UX challenge will be given. In the meantime, I’d say eBay will probably let people go on spending all their time incrementally bidding and sniping, cursing and rejoicing in the adrenaline of the moment when F5 is pressed after the auction has ended.

Perhaps it’s not all for eBay’s commercial gain that this particular usability problem is not solved. If eBay adequately explained proxy bidding and everyone was a ‘better’ bidder, perhaps the whole thing becomes efficient but ultimately clinical and boring. To take the gambling analogy again, it would be as if people walked into a casino and just threw in a bucket all the money they would have otherwise lost on the tables, thereby negating the need to actually gamble it away (resulting in everyone standing around wondering what to do with the rest of the night).

To give eBay’s UX team perhaps more credit than they may be due, perhaps they did research and found that people love the unpredictable nature auctions and that proxy bidding, while being a great tool, actually makes eBay less fun. It might remove the adrenaline and unpredictability of a real auction, which would be a tenet of the user experience they’d be trying to emulate online.

If that was the case, then fixing eBay’s proxy bidding usability problem might just kill one of the core pieces of excitement in the eBay user experience.