Wednesday, October 27, 2004

listening to websites

Just read this great article on Observing Users Who Listen to Websites.

In a nutshell:

  • Screen reader users scan with their ears; they are just as impatient as the rest of us who visually scan pages
  • They listen to links; make them meaningful
  • They jump directly to [properly coded] headings
  • They want to skip to the main content and bypass navigation; if they understand what the skip links mean
  • They hear acronyms and abbreviations as words; if they are not marked up correctly.

"Accessibility is not the same as usability. A site is not really accessible if it is not also usable."

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