Design: Accessibility

In this edition of Ask UXmatters, our experts discuss the following topics:

• best practices for designing for senior citizens
• organizing your work schedule

Every month in this column, our Ask UXmatters experts answer our readers’ questions about user experience matters. To get answers to your questions about UX strategy, design, or user research in an upcoming edition of Ask UXmatters, please send your questions to us at [email protected].

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Has your boss or a client ever asked you to review a user interface for a Web or desktop application? Perhaps the request went something like this: Can you just look over these new screens for us? Oh, and can you check the error messages, too? It won’t take long! And, by the way, we ship next month. Whether you are an interaction designer, usability professional, technical communicator, quality assurance engineer, or developer, reviewing a user interface typically means identifying

• usability problems related to the layout, logical flow, and structure of the interface and inconsistencies in the design
• non-compliance with standards
• ambiguous wording in labels, dialog boxes, error messages, and onscreen user assistance
• functional errors

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Digital products are about content. Even if you think they’re all about interactivity, controls are pointless if users don’t understand their purpose and cannot read about what they do. The most important thing you can do to make a Web site or app usable is to make sure everyone can read its text, on every device, under every condition.

Units and Conversions

First, let’s define some terminology. People often use the term font incorrectly these days. Technically, in the modern world, a font is a digital file containing a particular typeface. In this column, I’ll be using the term type when referring to the characters that make up printed or displayed text—including the content, the font or typeface, and its size and color. Read More