Interaction designers tend to focus on the interaction part of web design. We like engaging experiences, intuitive interfaces, and game-changing visuals. Usability is a given, and often times assumed. Accessibility, to most, is simply a checklist to ensure compliance. After reading this article, I realized we have it all wrong. Accessibility is usability and is a personal issue. It matters.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 was released in August of 2001 — it’s almost 8 years old. That’s like 72 in web years and it should be retired. We spend countless hours troubleshooting bugs, hacking CSS, and compromising the user experience to support it. Maybe sites like Bring Down IE 6 will help put it out of its misery sooner than later.
iPhone application designers should follow a simple rule: each screen should do only one thing, as simply as possible. The Password Engine app breaks this rule about 15 times. I can’t believe anybody would spend $2 on it. You couldn’t pay me $2 to install this app simply because of it’s design.
I discovered this interesting little bookmarklet that allow you to load a site without all the visual distractions of ads, sidebars, callouts, and other generally useless page elements so you can just see the text and primary images. It’s amazing how much better a site can perform if you cut the crap and just focus on the content — users might actually hang out and read.
This is just an experiment and maybe a bit buggy, but still interesting to check out:
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability