Newsletter issue #19 - 3rd October 2005
This issue
Hello and welcome to the October edition of the Webcredible newsletter!
In this issue:
- Feature article: Using the Web Accessibility Toolbar
- Top Tip: Ensure consistency between orientation items
- Useful program: Overture Search Term Suggestion
- Top link: Dyslexia Style Guide
- New articles in September
- Webcredible news in September
Enjoy!
Feature article: Using the Web Accessibility Toolbar
Testing a website for accessibility can be a time-consuming and laborious process. The free Web Accessibility Toolbar can do most of the hard work for you though. Read all about it in this month feature article and discover how to use web accessibility's best kept secret!
Read this article in full at www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/accessibility-toolbar.shtml.
Top tip: Ensure consistency between orientation items
Orientation items are essential to helping web users work out where they are on your site and what the current page offers. Orientation items include:
- Page title
- Main heading
- Breadcrumbs
- Links
When users arrive at a new page on your website, one of the first things they'll do is re-assure themselves that they are in fact on the correct page. To help them achieve this goal, exactly the same wording should be used for each of these.
So, if you use ‘Contact us’ as the link text, don't label the page title ‘Enquiries’. The page title, along with the main heading and breadcrumbs, should all say ‘Contact us’.
Useful program: Overture Search Term Suggestion
Not sure which words and phrases your site visitors are using to refer to your products or services? Visit the Overture Search Term Suggestion and find out! Simply type in words related to what you do and the tool will tell you which related terms web users are entering into the search engines.
You can access this program at inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion.
Top link: Dyslexia Style Guide
When considering accessibility many web managers focus more on the technical side of things. Making sure content is easy to comprehend is equally important, and this Dyslexia Style Guide contains some handy tips on how to achieve this.
Check out this useful information at 81.89.134.99/main/information/extras/x09frend.asp.
New articles in September
Read these and many other articles at www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources.
Webcredible news in September
- New article attracts 10,000 site visitors in a day!
- Webcredible gets new logo
- New training reservation system now online
Read these news stories in full at www.webcredible.co.uk/about-us/latest-news.shtml.
Training courses
Webcredible has announced three new training courses: Web usability, usability testing and writing for the web. The courses are currently only available as private in-house courses, but we will soon be announcing dates for them as open public courses.
Our next open courses for accessibility and CSS will take place in our training centre in Aldgate, London in early November:
- Web accessibility training - Thursday 3rd November. For more information and to reserve your place before it fills up please consult our web accessibility training page.
- Advanced CSS training - Friday 4th November. For more information and to reserve your place before it fills up please consult our advanced CSS training page.
About Webcredible
Based in London, UK, Webcredible is a user experience consultancy. Tailor-made usability, accessibility & design solutions include:
- User-centered design
- Accessible web design
- CMS services
- Usability
- Accessibility
- Training
- Website review lite
Please contact us on 0870 242 6095 or info at webcredible.co.uk, or consult www.webcredible.co.uk for further information.