Media: Search Engine Watch looks at Accessibility Provision

"Making Search Accessible to Visually Impaired Users" by Matt Bailey reviews progress by the search engines to make their wares useful to people with visual impairments and looks at some of their needs.

He describes how 'clean, well-structured semantic markup is the best thing you could hope to have'. But he points out that the main obstacle is that there is no single "fix" that will make a site accessible to all users. He then introduces two users with very different requirements that both like to use Google:

'Lee, who has albinism, a condition of "low-vision." She prefers to view yellow or white text on a black background for added contrast. Google's accessibility search was not helpful to her, as it was obvious that it was initially created for blind users. ...She would like the ability to store her Google preferences through a cookie so that her background and text color preferences would be automatic.'

and:

'Glenda, is currently writing a book about overcoming cerebral palsy and building a life for herself. She uses a combination of assistive technologies to interact online. Her main input device is a keyboard, on a non-slip mat. She also uses a joystick to control the cursor movements, and word prediction software that predicts the words that she is typing, which saves on keystrokes. Glenda does not have any vision impairments, but she relies on interfaces that are clear, simple, and have a consistent design, and that have features that enable her to input information easily and do not distract her by moving or flashing elements.'

Associated Link: Search Engine Watch: Making Search Accessible to Visually Impaired Users

Online poker company uses Science to assess Player Preferences
Source: Recentpoker.com, 8 January 2009
 
Working with customer experience consultancy Foviance, PKR is exploiting the benefits of electroencephalography (EEG) technology to gather information on poker players' emotional relationship with a brand or service.

Do Users really love Laptops?
Source: channelinsider, 7 January 2009
 
More than one-fifth of all laptop computers will break down over the course of their life, and other limitations frustrate their users. From this list of user complaints come laptop opportunities.

User Interviews - Analysis Simplified
Source: Webcredible, 6 January 2009
 
You’ve conducted your user interviews, but now you need to make sense of all that information you’ve gathered.

Why Products Fail
Source: ComputerWorld, 5 January 2009
 
Most gadget and software makers don't understand what users want most: control.

How to Design Websites for Mobile Phones
Source: stemkoski.com, 3 January 2009
 
Tips from Ryan Stemkoski's web design blog.

Pioneer of Cyberspace honoured
Source: BBC, 2 January 2009
 
A professor who invented a forerunner of the world wide web has been made a dame in the New Year Honours.

2008 in Review: Developments that rocked the world of User Experience
Source: Catalyst Resources, 1 January 2009
 
A look back at 2008 highlights some of the key developments that rocked the world of user experience.

2008: The Year Online
Source: MIT Technology Review, 31 December 2008
 
The business of social networking, cloud computing, and a flaw in the fabric of the Internet top the most notable stories of 2008.

Shoveling through the Spamalanche
Source: UN, 30 December 2008
 
A ‘Spamalanche’ of 3,000 emails will be waiting in your inbox by the time you get back to work. What can you do besides 'delete all'?

New guidelines boost Web Access
Source: BBC, 29 December 2008
 
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced a new standard to make sites more accessible to older and disabled people.