Usability

Anything that isn't usable is pretty useless, so avoid creating websites without considering usability.

A call for consistent display of alt text across browsers

How browsers display alt text for missing images varies, so it would be nice to see this standardised by specifying the recommended behaviour in HTML 5.

Posted on January 20, 2010

If you must use a dropdown menu, make sure it’s keyboard friendly

Many dropdown/flyout/DHTML menus are not keyboard friendly. Next time you implement a dropdown menu, make sure it can be used without a mouse.

Posted on December 21, 2009

Don’t fear the fold – people do scroll

If a web page is taller than the browser window, people do know how to scroll and will do so if they need to to find what they are looking for.

Posted on December 14, 2009

Safari, WebKit and alt text for missing images

Safari and most other WebKit-based browsers do not show alt text for missing or broken images unless it fits on a single line within the image’s allocated width.

Posted on December 7, 2009

Use a background image in your CSS? Remember to specify a backup colour.

Whenever you place text on top of a background image, check if the text is readable if the image is missing and specify a background colour if necessary.

Posted on December 3, 2009

Lightboxes and keyboard accessibility

All Lightbox clones that I have tested have issues with keyboard accessibility, making it unnecessarily difficult or confusing to use them without a mouse.

Posted on October 20, 2009

Remove the outline from links on :active only

Completely removing the outline from links makes it very difficult for people who do not use a mouse to see where the keyboard focus is. But there is a better way.

Posted on October 13, 2009

Improve your keyboard accessibility

Many web designers and developers forget about or ignore keyboard-only users when building web sites. Here is some advice on what to avoid and what to do.

Posted on October 12, 2009

Skip links need to be at least temporarily visible

When you add skip links to a site, do not hide them completely from sighted users.

Posted on September 29, 2009

Readable – another way of improving readability on the Web

The Readable bookmarklet, especially in combination with the Better Web Readability CSS framework, makes websites easier to scan and read.

Posted on September 25, 2009

Användbarhetsboken – a free online book on usability

If you can read Swedish, here’s an opportunity to read a good book on usability for free.

Posted on September 16, 2009

(Almost) never add a reset button to a form

Think carefully before adding a reset button to a form. Is being able to reset the form so valuable that it is worth the risk of losing the data you have entered? Probably not.

Posted on September 1, 2009

Make more web content readable with Readability

Like the content on a site but have a hard time reading it? Try the Readability bookmarklet.

Posted on August 25, 2009

Page zoom does not mean the end of flexibility

The fact that most browsers now default to zooming the entire page instead of just changing text size does not take away the need for flexibility in web design.

Posted on June 18, 2009

Do not remove the outline from links and form controls

Do not use CSS to remove the visual outline most browsers put on elements that have keyboard focus, and do not use JavaScript to immediately remove focus.

Posted on May 14, 2009

Don’t forget keyboard navigation

Remember that many people do not use a mouse to interact with the web, so you have to make sure that the sites or applications you build work independent of input device.

Posted on May 13, 2009

Let your links look like links

Don’t make your users waste their time by hiding links. If you can’t stand the look of blue and underlined links, there are other ways of making them obvious. But do not rely on colour alone.

Posted on April 22, 2009