accessibility and usability

[Barbara de Zoete]

[F'up set to ciwas-d]

I am getting more and more confused as to the meaning of the words
'accessibility' and 'usability' *in the context of the world wide web*.
What do these two words mean? How do they differ from one another? Where
does the meaning overlap, if it does? Where do they perhaps conflict with
one another, if they do?

Can anyone please explain to someone who is not native speaking, nor
fluent in English?

TIA
--
Weblog | <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/_private/weblog.html>
Webontwerp | <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/webontwerp.html>
Zweefvliegen | <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html>

[Roy Schestowitz]

Barbara de Zoete wrote:

[F'up set to ciwas-d]

I am getting more and more confused as to the meaning of the words
'accessibility' and 'usability' *in the context of the world wide web*.
What do these two words mean? How do they differ from one another? Where
does the meaning overlap, if it does? Where do they perhaps conflict with
one another, if they do?

Can anyone please explain to someone who is not native speaking, nor
fluent in English?

Accessibility is concerned with design that accommodates the need of
disabled people (usually). For example, if you are near-sighted or blind
(and hence _listen_ to Web pages), you want the page to have properties
that make it friendly to you.

Accessibility is a subset of usability, I suppose. It is one aspect that
makes a page easier to _use_, by all audiences. This leads to the
definition of 'usability'. Usability can be explained in terms of ease of
navigation (How do I get to...), good context (where am I inside the Web
site?), etc.

I know examples can help...

I hope this helps,

Roy

--
Roy Schestowitz
http://schestowitz.com

[Tina - AffordableHOST, Inc.]

"Roy Schestowitz" <ne********@schestowitz.com> wrote in message
news:co**********@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk...

Barbara de Zoete wrote:

[F'up set to ciwas-d]

I am getting more and more confused as to the meaning of the words
'accessibility' and 'usability' *in the context of the world wide web*.
What do these two words mean? How do they differ from one another? Where
does the meaning overlap, if it does? Where do they perhaps conflict with
one another, if they do?

Can anyone please explain to someone who is not native speaking, nor
fluent in English?

Accessibility is concerned with design that accommodates the need of
disabled people (usually). For example, if you are near-sighted or blind
(and hence _listen_ to Web pages), you want the page to have properties
that make it friendly to you.

Accessibility is a subset of usability, I suppose. It is one aspect that
makes a page easier to _use_, by all audiences. This leads to the
definition of 'usability'. Usability can be explained in terms of ease of
navigation (How do I get to...), good context (where am I inside the Web
site?), etc.

I would actually define usability closer to what you've described as
accessibility. Accessibility simply being whether or not you can actually
access the website.

--Tina
--
http://www.AffordableHOST.com - Multi-Domain & Reseller Cpanel Hosting
++ 20% Discount Coupon Code ++: newsgroup
Serving the web since 1997

[Harlan Messinger]

"Tina - AffordableHOST, Inc." <ti**@affordablehost.com> wrote in message
news:10*************@corp.supernews.com...

"Roy Schestowitz" <ne********@schestowitz.com> wrote in message
news:co**********@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk...

Barbara de Zoete wrote:

[F'up set to ciwas-d]

I am getting more and more confused as to the meaning of the words
'accessibility' and 'usability' *in the context of the world wide web*.
What do these two words mean? How do they differ from one another? Where does the meaning overlap, if it does? Where do they perhaps conflict with one another, if they do?

Can anyone please explain to someone who is not native speaking, nor
fluent in English?
Accessibility is concerned with design that accommodates the need of
disabled people (usually). For example, if you are near-sighted or blind
(and hence _listen_ to Web pages), you want the page to have properties
that make it friendly to you.

Accessibility is a subset of usability, I suppose. It is one aspect that
makes a page easier to _use_, by all audiences. This leads to the
definition of 'usability'. Usability can be explained in terms of ease of navigation (How do I get to...), good context (where am I inside the Web
site?), etc.

I would actually define usability closer to what you've described as
accessibility. Accessibility simply being whether or not you can

actually access the website.

That's the plain meaning of the word. But in the context of the Web, and I
suppose in user interface design in general, "accessibility" has taken on
the specific meaning explained by Roy, euphemistic as it is, and that's how
it's now generally understood.

[Sander Tekelenburg]

In article <co**********@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk>,
Roy Schestowitz <ne********@schestowitz.com> wrote:

Barbara de Zoete wrote:

[F'up set to ciwas-d]

I am getting more and more confused as to the meaning of the words
'accessibility' and 'usability' *in the context of the world wide web*.
What do these two words mean? How do they differ from one another? Where
does the meaning overlap, if it does? Where do they perhaps conflict with
one another, if they do?

Can anyone please explain to someone who is not native speaking, nor
fluent in English?
Accessibility is concerned with design that accommodates the need of
disabled people (usually). For example, if you are near-sighted or blind
(and hence _listen_ to Web pages), you want the page to have properties
that make it friendly to you.

To me that's just a subset of 'accessibility". When content is Flash- or
javascript- or CSS-dependant, it is inaccessible to browsing
environments that don't handle Flash or javascript or CSS. Equally, when
content is sight-dependant (like an image without a useful ALT
attribute), it is not accessible to people who can't see (and to
spiders).

W3C's WAI seems to have decided to use "accessibility" to only concern
"people with disabilities" See <http://w3.org/WAI/>. While accessibility
issues to such groups are certainly worth considering when designing for
the Web, to me this is a too narrow view. It seems to me that very
narrowness even leads to design mistakes, like offering 'text-only'
versions of Web sites, instead of making 1 single Website that is
accessible to all.
Accessibility is a subset of usability, I suppose. It is one aspect that
makes a page easier to _use_, by all audiences.
I consider usability to come after accessibility. Something that is not
accessible is not useable, but something that is accessible can be
unuseable still.
This leads to the
definition of 'usability'. Usability can be explained in terms of ease of
navigation (How do I get to...), good context (where am I inside the Web
site?), etc.

Agreed.

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

[Leonard Blaisdell]

In article <us************************@news.euro.net>, Sander Tekelenburg
<us**@domain.invalid> wrote:

To me that's just a subset of 'accessibility". When content is Flash- or
javascript- or CSS-dependant, it is inaccessible to browsing
environments that don't handle Flash or javascript or CSS. Equally, when
content is sight-dependant (like an image without a useful ALT
attribute), it is not accessible to people who can't see (and to
spiders).

Forgive me, but I have no idea how a site can be CSS dependant. I'm sure
I'm out of my league here. I'm missing something as usual.

leo

--
<http://web0.greatbasin.net/~leo/>

[Neal]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 22:30:54 -0800, Leonard Blaisdell <le*@greatbasin.com>
wrote:

In article <us************************@news.euro.net>, Sander Tekelenburg
<us**@domain.invalid> wrote:

To me that's just a subset of 'accessibility". When content is Flash- or
javascript- or CSS-dependant, it is inaccessible to browsing
environments that don't handle Flash or javascript or CSS. Equally, when
content is sight-dependant (like an image without a useful ALT
attribute), it is not accessible to people who can't see (and to
spiders).

Forgive me, but I have no idea how a site can be CSS dependant. I'm sure
I'm out of my league here. I'm missing something as usual.

Just one example:

<div>
<h1>Shadows</h1>
<h1 class="shadow">Shadows</h1>
</div>

with CSS

div {position: relative;}
..shadow {position: absolute; top: 2px; left: -2px; color: #ccc;}

[vatore]

"Neal" <ne*****@yahoo.com> wrote

Forgive me, but I have no idea how a site can be CSS dependant. I'm sure
I'm out of my league here. I'm missing something as usual.

Just one example:

<div>
<h1>Shadows</h1>
<h1 class="shadow">Shadows</h1>
</div>

with CSS

div {position: relative;}
.shadow {position: absolute; top: 2px; left: -2px; color: #ccc;}

I think it is accessible still (every UA that can interpret html code can
display/read header) but it is unusable in non-css UAs, beacuse makes user
confused.

More inaccessible CSS-dependant solution would be:
<div id="column1">
<div class="row"></div>
<div class="row"></div>
</div>
<div id="column2">
<div class="row"></div>
<div class="row"></div>
</div>

And you can easily imagine the CSS that makes it display like a 2 columns 2
rows table in visual UA, but it makes the site inaccesible when rows&cols
contain related data.

Another inaccessible css dependant solutin could be:
<span style="font-size: 2em; font-weight: bold; display: block;>This is a
header</span>And the rest of the text.

CSS enabled visual browser will render the <span /> to look like a header,
but when CSS is not parsed user will get one line of text, so the "header"
will no longer be a header and possibly will make the text hard to
understand.

So CSS-dependant non-accessible solutions are mostly when we use visual
formatting to display an element to look like somenthing when we have
semantical elements to do the thing.

--
pawel[dot]knapik[at]gmail[dot]com
www.csslayouts.net //beta version

[Sander Tekelenburg]

In article <co**********@achot.icm.edu.pl>, "vatore" <va****@wp.pl>
wrote:

[...]

Another inaccessible css dependant solutin could be:
<span style="font-size: 2em; font-weight: bold; display: block;>This is a
header</span>And the rest of the text.
Right. That's the sort of stuff I was thinking about.
CSS enabled visual browser will render the <span /> to look like a header,
but when CSS is not parsed user will get one line of text, so the "header"
will no longer be a header and possibly will make the text hard to
understand.

Not only that, a search engine wouldn't recognize the text's importance
so the content is likely to be indexed wrong (well, right actually, but
probably not in accordance with what the author meant ;)).

Similar stuff would be <SPAN STYLE="color: red">this is really
important</SPAN>.

But I was also thinking of the unfortunately all too common fenomenon of
stacking a truckload of DIVs in no logical order whatsoever and then
using CSS to create that 'logic' after the fact. When accessed without
CSS capability you find yourself scrolling through pages and pages of
'DHTML' menus in search of the bloody content, often even hidden at the
far right, just past your coffee mug. I imagine that if I were Google's
spider I'd be all like "I'm soooo the fuck outta here" ;)

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

[kchayka]

on 2004-12-01, Leonard Blaisdell wrote:

Forgive me, but I have no idea how a site can be CSS dependant.

Use Opera, or a mozilla browser with the Web Developer toolbar installed.
With stylesheets (and images enabled), go to

<URL:http://www.arngren.net/>

Then disable CSS and reload.

wow