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Re: Web accessibility and usability

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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Oct 11, 2004 6:17AM

I do not think you can make a general statement that
accessibility means poorer usability.

What about using markup that allows content to reflow to fit
the width of a screen as text size, window width or pixel
density changes. This is clearly an advantage to both
usability and accessibility. People with disabilities can
adjust fonts size and foreground and background colors easier,
and people without disabilities with high resolution monitors
can adjust text to be readible on their high resolution
screen. This seems like a win-win situation for all users and
usability increases because users can adjust content to meet
their needs or hardware characteristics.

Jon


---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:22:06 +0100
>From: "michael.brockington"
>Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Web accessibility and usability
>To: "WebAIM Discussion List"
>
>
>> As for the usefulness of such a study, I'd say
yes...anything that can
>> help convince decision makers to invest in accessibility
would be a good > thing.
>
>I think that you are jumping to conclusions there - I don't
mean to be
>awkward, but occasionaly adding accessibility has meant (for
me) sacrificing
>usability a little, and I suspect that any un-biased report
would have to say
>the same thing. (Does anyone think that the previously
mentioned Microsoft
>Report was un-biased? Is any MS Report ever unbiased?)
>The most obvious example that I can think of was a recent
discussion about
>providing documents in multiple formats. The best way of
doing this in a
>visual browser is to do:
>
>Extremely_long_document_title: (Word Format) (PDF Format)
>Official_Reports_Always_Have_long_names: (Word Format) (PDF
Format)
>
>But this conflicts with accessibility since all of the links
have the same
>name. I don't know which solutions people use, but (by
definition) any
>accessible solution will be less usable.
>
>Mike
>
>
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Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
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