Episode 18
20/09/2007 | Filed under Podcast
On this show: The panel discusses the importance of user experience design. We also investigate the best way to draw up a contract with your clients, mourn the state of CSS support in email and suggest some useful ways to improve your error messages.
Multimedia web content
The October issue of the .net magazine leads with an article about creating a positive user experience. We continue this theme on the show by bringing together Andy Budd (ClearLeft), Hammad Khan (persona creative) and Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path) to discuss the importance of user experience design. Topics include:- What do we mean when we talk about user experience?
- Is user experience becoming more of an issue these days?
- At what point should you start considering the user experience?
- Are there any general rules that you must follow?
- How can you tell if your existing site has user experience problems?
- How do you measure user experience?
- What should be included in a usability test?
- Should you get an expert in or can you do this yourself?
- How do you keep your user experience skills fresh?
What part does accessibility play in user experience?
News
A Guide to CSS Support in Email
As web designers most of us find ourselves designing HTML email templates from time to time. Obviously as good standards based designers, we want to develop these templates using the latest CSS techniques. However, according to a new guide on CSS support in email released by Campaign Monitor we could well be very disappointed. The guide provides a detailed analysis of the current state of email clients including a breakdown of all CSS properties and the support various clients offer.
Its a somewhat depressing read especially since the launch of Outlook 2007. However, if you are involved in developing HTML email then it is useful reference material.
Contract Killers
This week Andy Budd published an article on the Digital Web Magazine about drawing up contracts with clients. He investigates four different approaches to pricing projects including the traditional fixed price / fixed scope model to more unusual solutions. However most of the article is dedicated to the approach he uses at ClearLeft. This approach fixes the price of the project but varies the scope based on the time spent developing individual bits of functionality.
Its an interesting article that proposes a much fairer system by taking some of the risk away from the web designer and placing it on the client. Although the concept is an attractive one, it is far from clear how easy it would be to persuade clients to adopt this approach.
Dealing with error messages
Another interesting post that appeared this week was by the usability expert Jared Spool. In his post Jared looks at a real world example of an application form and takes the reader step by step through the problems he found with it. He then goes on to explain how these issues could have been easily overcome.
Jared’s post reminds us that error handling is an important aspect of building a web application and that too often it is overlooked. One way that you can improve error handling is by providing context sensitive messages about potential problems. Traditionally these have been done with popup windows or dialogue boxes both of which are fairly unattractive. One option might be to use a new javascript library called ModalBox that allows you to create popup boxes in a similar style to the image gallery library Lightbox.
How to resize text video
One of the biggest complaints made about most websites relates to readability. Often the problem lies in the fact that text simply isn’t large enough. However what is big enough for one person is too big for another and so giving the user the ability to set their own font sizes is extremely useful. Fortunately all modern browsers provide this functionality. Unfortunately few users know how to use it.
Many web designers work around this problem by adding resizing controls to their websites. However, Ian Lloyd from accessify argues that there is a better way. Instead of relying on controls that only work for a single website, we should be teaching users to use the inbuilt browser controls. With this aim in mind Ian has produced a YouTube video demonstrating to users how to change the text size of websites they visit. Because it is on YouTube you can easily integrate it with your own site thereby demonstrating how to resize text in IE 6, IE 7 and Firefox. Thanks Ian!
