It is, slowly but surely, becoming well-known that websites should be accessible to all people, regardless of any disabilities they might have. Many blogs, such as this one, contain lots of information about techniques for improving accessibility, as do the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

However, I don't see a whole lot of talk about usability testing with disabled users, and how to interact with disabled people when you actually do usability testing. And many Web professionals, including myself, who value accessibility highly don't always include people with disabilities in their projects, and don't necessarily test all websites they design and build with disabled users.

But of course we really should, and Shawn Lawton Henry's book Just Ask - Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design explains how by focusing on the importance of including people with disabilities throughout the design process.

The book has two parts. The first part explains the basics of why, and perhaps more importantly how to involve people with disabilities in your projects. This includes tips on how to find people with disabilities, some notes on various assistive technology, and how we can learn from people with disabilities.

After that, Shawn provides some very useful advice on how to interact with people with disabilities. This is great, since one of the things I notice when I do talks and workshops on Web standards and accessibility is that many feel uncomfortable talking to (or even about) people with disabilities. Shawn mentions some of the reasons people have for feeling uncomfortable, and then shares the following tips:

• Don't make assumptions about people or their disabilities
• Ask before you help
• Talk directly to the user, not to the interpreter, attendant, or friend
• Speak normally
• Use "people-first" language when referring to people with disabilities
• Avoid potentially offensive terms or euphemisms
• Be aware of personal space

All very good advice.

The second part of the book is focused on how to integrate accessibility in user-centered design. Much of it is not particularly new to anyone who practices user-centered design, but the important difference is that Shawn describes how to perform user-centered design and usability testing that specifically includes people with disabilities.

It's hard to find anything to complain about with this book. It's easy to read, clearly structured, and contains very useful tips that will help you make sure your websites, software, or hardware does not have significant accessibility barriers.

The book is available for free online, but if you want to have a printed copy you can buy it from the author directly (which is cheaper), or order it from Amazon.

Regardless of whether you read it online or want to pay for a paper copy, do take the time to read Just Ask - Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design. Doing so is definitely worth your time.

Just Ask - Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

Author: Shawn Lawton Henry

ISBN-10: 1430319526

ISBN-13: 978-1430319528

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Posted in Accessibility, Reviews.

The stars must have certainly aligned bizarrely in July, for the folks at one of my all-time fave sites, Coudal Partners, graciously invited me to be Guest Editor for August. Purveyors of fine productions such as Swap Meat, peculiar short films, and of course Jewelboxing, Coudal is a daily must-visit.

I've been adding Fresh Signals, albeit lightly due to wrapping up The Book, for a couple weeks and will do so through the end of the month. Thanks for the invite, chaps.

Robert Hodgin has released a fantastic iTunes visualizer, based on his mind-blowing processing experiments. I’ve never been a fan of visualizers in the past, probably because they typically look like something from an early 70’s sci-fi TV show (and not in a good way). In contrast this thing is all smooth organic 3-d motion and lovely glowing orbs.

I used PCs on a daily basis for about ten years, but over the last three or four years I’ve become a full-fledged Apple fanboy convert. I buy a new mac about once a year or so and have tried out pretty much every product they’ve released over the last few years. So when Steve Jobs debuted iLife ‘08 and mentioned iMovie worked with the new AVCHD format available in $700 Panasonic cameras, I bought one to give it a go.

Today I put all this new software and hardware to the test. I carried the video camera around and shot a few things during a visit to the Oregon Garden. I came home, imported all the clips into iMovie, arranged a few and threw a song on top of it. Finally, I uploaded it to my “Web Gallery”.

Here is the resulting 3 minute movie

Quick review of each aspect

Panasonic HDC-SD1 Camera

This is a great camcorder. I’ve had and used a couple mini-DV camcorders over the last few years and this was easier to use and packed with more features than I was used to. My favorite thing is that it writes all video to a special 4Gb SD card (most card readers can’t understand it, so I just use the included USB cables with the camera). What is great about ditching tapes and simply using a memory card is the unit is much lighter than a camcorder that uses tapes, and if you’re reviewing ten previous recorded clips, say clip 1, and you hit the record button, it’ll start recording clip 11 in the right place (no more fast forwarding or taping over previous video).

It charges fairly fast and video looks fantastic on my 46″ 1080p LCD. I can’t believe a little $750 camcorder can do such nice high def stuff. About the only downside I’ve found in use is the microphone which is about what you’d expect (only works well if someone’s standing directly in front of it speaking) and if I really wanted to film a nice movie I’d need some external microphones.

So far in two weeks of using this, I’m finding that since I don’t have to fumble for tapes or worry if I’m taping over something, and since it’s small and light, I use this much more than my previous camcorders.

iMovie ‘08

iMovie is completely different in the new iLife suite. David Pogue has written a scathing review because they changed everything compared to the old version and actually removed some functionality, but I followed the use-case presented by Jobs in the last Apple demo: I recorded some clips about a trip and assembled them really quickly in the editor. Compared with iMovie ‘06, I’d say the new version is much easier and faster to make short videos. I used the previous version on a handful of occasions and found myself using the help files more than the iMovie tools themselves. With iMovie ‘08, the things Steve Jobs did in his demo pretty much covers the entire application. I edited my movie in about 20 minutes total, which is at least twice as fast as me doing the same thing in the old version. The “skimming” feature where you mouse over clips is incredible and really handy for testing out sections of clips you want to cut.

.Mac and the Web Gallery

I’ve never been much of a fan or user of the .Mac service. I only had to pay for it once when coworkers used to share some tools and I let my membership lapse until today. So far it seems like a nice backup space to keep 10Gb of files but mostly I wanted it for the tight integration with iMovie. I have to say it’s really, really easy to upload something to your .Mac webspace by simply clicking a menu item and telling iMovie to do its magic. Time will tell if it’s worth keeping for more than a year but so far I really like the photo galleries and movie player pages.

A lighthearted post for a sunday evening, this video single is currently topping the charts on design blogs all over the web, so thought we could add it, though as always, we’re a few days off the pace:

Armin on Speak Up, does rightly point us to this: Big! Bigger! Biggest! as possibly a better parody - both quite amusing though.

This article highlights a great scheme in Barcelona and offers some interesting comments from a brand/design angle…

Remember the old days when wireless networks were few and far between? Since then, we have come a long way with commercial & personal networks overlapping and blanketing neighborhoods and city blocks. Although performance, reliability, and security have improved, hardware is still bulky, unattractive, and generally "unfriendly". Wireless hardware is the type of device that is unboxed, plugged in, connected, troubleshooted, and left underneath an office desk or atop a bedroom shelf [until the device needs tweaking]. There really is no reason to keep a wireless router in plain view. Browse the wireless section at your nearest electronics store and you’ll see the same square boxes with an antennae or two sticking out the backside.

Belkin introduces the N1 Vision

Belkin recently launched the N1 Vision ($199) which offers a built-in display for broadband network speed, upload & download speed, individual computer bandwidth usage, connected devices, total data usage over a 24 hour period, devices accessing the network as guests, and a general clock / date.

Packaged in a new sleek and sophisticated design, N1 Vision offers the best in networking performance with its wireless 802.11n* 3×3 radio design and wired gigabit ports. The N1 Vision wireless router continues Belkin’s commitment in providing the best user experience in the home market through its Plug-and-Play “CD-less” installation and simple network security setup. [source]

My N1 Vision arrived earlier this week and gave me plenty of time to experience the setup, test performance, and share my thoughts concerning a $199 802.11n router.

Apple sets the packaging standard, Belkin takes a hint

Like many other companies, Belkin picked-up on a few hints from Apple and their attention to packaging detail. See Apple, Jawbone, and Belkin below:

Clean and organized packaging really does translate into an easier unboxing and setup experience. The numerical hints which adorn the small boxed items match the numerical order of steps found in the quick start guide & on the back of the router itself.

N1 Vision; a "friendly" router installation

Setting up the router is as simple as plugging in the power adapter (wall-to-unit), connecting the ethernet cable (modem-to-router), hard wiring a computer (initial setup), and typing "routersetup" in your favorite browser. From here, the installation is quick and easily completed within a minute or two.

Opening "routersetup" in your default browser begins the setup process for entering your network name (SSID), security key (default security type is WPA + WPA2 PSK), guest mode (disabled by default), and a guest security key. Click apply and the router is provisioned and restarted.

Once the router saves your initial settings, your setup is complete. Disconnect your computer from the router and search for your new wireless network to connect.

Belkin N1 Vision setup screen - click for high resolution screenshot.

N1 Vision display is not gimmicky

An auxiliary wireless router display may seem gimmicky considering the router serves a single purpose of sharing your internet connection. However, after a week of use, the router display has proven itself as a great resource for diagnosing your wireless network performance.

• The ISP is currently down, N1 Vision makes this known by overriding the current view with a status message notifying you of connectivity issues.
• Want to know who is on your network? Browse through a list of connected users.
• Curious to know why your network is feeling sluggish? Find out who is moving the most data right now.
• Wow your guests and showcase your geekiness.

Things I like, and a few I don’t

Likes

• Excellent network coverage - up to 1600 ft. With the router setup in my apartment, I can access the network from one of my favorite sushi spots up the street.
• Auxiliary display which lets me see how much data is moving in and out while sitting back watching television.
• The router is appealing enough to keep in plain view - looks right at home with the glossy finish of the Toshiba Regza LCD.
• Gigabit - need I see more? Four ports to share the data between XBox, Mac Mini, and networked media server.

Dislikes

• The N1 Vision arrived factory sealed but has some serious spider scratches over the entire finish - bad quality inspection.
• Buttons to navigate the different display views require a very firm press. Buttons click but often do not respond unless firmly pressed for 1-2 secs.
• Entering "routersetup" from any networked machines does not open the router admin panel - the usual 192.168.x.1 does the trick.

Overall, I am a huge fan of the router which offers a huge set of security options and wireless configurations. Guest access mode is great, but not something I see myself enabling. Prior to the N1 Vision, I was using the the Kyocera KR1 router + Sprint’s EVDO network as my main connection. The addition of the auxiliary display gives me a heads-up on network activity while providing a little extra juice for moving data on my local network. [Digg this]

* Belkin N1 Vision unboxing pictures on Flickr.

On July 1 2007 I decided to leave the W3C HTML Working Group. My reason was not primarily lack of time due to my new phase of life, as some have guessed.

Sadly, I left for much more troubling reasons. I left because I was fed up with the dismissive and hostile attitude a number of individuals in the working group have towards those who do not fully share their view of how the future of HTML should be shaped.

I was sick of watching as people were being ridiculed, ignored or dismissed when they asked questions, voiced objections, or otherwise tried to contribute. It happened on the public-html mailing list, on #html-wg, the working group's official IRC channel, and on #whatwg, WHAT WG's IRC channel. By the way, both IRC channels have public logs.

Things had gone far enough that a non-negligible number of members (including myself) were reluctant to voice their opinion or make suggestions. It even made some people decide to leave the working group. This, of course, is a completely unacceptable and unproductive working environment.

So I left. Which was probably good news to some, since it meant one less best practice advocate to deal with.

But being of the curious kind, I couldn't stop myself from keeping an eye on the mailing list archives. Some of the problems were brought to light by a number of other working group members and discussed. After that, things seem to have improved slightly.

It has also become very clear to me that I am far from the only person to think that the current process of editing the specification for the next version of HTML is... less than ideal.

I suppose I could just give up, keep going as if no problems existed, wait for HTML 5 to be done, and then deal with it, provided I still work in this business in the year 2020. Maybe that is what I should do. But I don't like giving up on things I am passionate about.

So I'm giving this a second chance. The other day I rejoined the W3C HTML Working Group. This time around, however, I will be taking the opinions of people who seem to lack experience of real-world Web development and apparently are uninterested in actually improving the Web with a truckload or two of salt. Hopefully that will help me keep my temper.

Looking forward I think my energy will be best spent helping to produce documents that are useful to and readable by people who create websites. By the looks of things the actual HTML 5 specification will be extremely difficult to read, and basically created for browser vendors only.

Tutorials and best practice documents for Web professionals will be desperately needed. Suggestions on what you would like to see in such documents are welcome.

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Posted in (X)HTML, HTML 5, Rants, Web Standards.

photo credit: Jason Garber

Top 10 Highlights of Barcamp DC 2007

1.) 50% of everything, especially design, is sales - Jenna Marino
2.) Good variety of sessions for an unplanned style conference. Sessions ranged from Rails to Mobile Web to The Facebook Platform.
3.) Estimated number of iPhone per geek - 2 to 3 ratio.
4.) Meeting some of the people in the weblebrity circle
5.) Talking at Barcamp, does not necessarily mean you know what you’re talking about.
6.) Afternoon thought-provoking FB Session
7.) Cafe Asia has an awesome fried rice and a unisex bathroom
8.) Confirmed that Patrick Haney Is Not a Sausage
9.) Shop talk about icons with Alex Giron of CSS Beauty
10.) People - Meeting new people in the industry and the alike. And of course, partyin’ it up with friends that are believers of the “Bar” part more so than the “Camp”!

A short but sincere thank you to the three J’s that organized it, Jason, Justin and Jackson. Thanks for reminding us that we are not alone on the boat of ‘wanting to make something great’.

By: Alisa Schadt

Tidbits from the morning session of interest.

After this morning of sessions, I came to the realization that the people are constantly struggling to define design itself and designer’s roles, including designers. Personally, I am ok with the understanding that I don’t know how to create a rails app and if you asked me what Kevin Lawver does in a day, I couldn’t tell you. And to that point, I plan on continuing to attend, to learn, and understand.

I knew it would be an interesting conversation when the title of this session was basically “design challenges” or “design processes and challenges”. Either way, I feel like the endless need to classify ourselves as interactive, or as web, or as user interface designers is just a title or tag with no additional meaning than words on a page. I would go so far as to say a few select designers seem to be so self conscious regarding their role that they felt the need to over-justify their existence, if that’s even a term. Trying to get a word in seemed futile.

My questions, theories, and discoveries came to this.

1.) Why, as designers, are we complaining about being a ui, web, interactive designer, who does it all including CSS, html and whatever else I may need to still learn? Isn’t that what a developer does every time he/she read the Ruby Cookbook cover to cover? Why was it made to seem such a hardship to require us to understand UI, design and code? Isn’t being more marketable the key to success as a designer?

2.) As designers, you know your skills, your talents, you’ve done your research, you’ve created a design solution that, without a doubt, delivers on the client’s needs and requests. If you communicate and can ‘sell’ your final product, why are you here now asking how to get a client to like your work? In my opinion, the responsibility is ours.

3.) My favorite new tool in the arsenal that is ‘sales’ for designers is this: CrazyEgg How could we not utilize products such as this to make light of what we do and why we do it.

What I learned? We are undefinable, and I like it that way.

In addition to my heartfelt appreciation to the 3 J’s, I would like to thank Martin Ringlein for indulging me as I evolved this ‘thought’ with him at the Cafe.

By: Jenna Marino