Mike’s thoughts and musings

Assignment pages complete!

http://mikep85.pbwiki.com/f/index.html

What do we think? (Yes I know the XML is a bit caned !!)

I’d just like to make one final post in terms of preparation to define a few things. The audience targets I’d like to think have now been settled, and details of this are in my previous post. The only two things I need to discuss now are the website topic and the technology I will be using.

In terms of the website topic, I had a few ideas. There were some that were sort of based around reviewing certain things, such as computer games, music albums and books. The other idea I had was about English Premiership football news. Originally, music album reviews did seem quite appealing, but then I had to try and see if the target audiences would probably be appealed to it, and I sort of fell down at the children audience as I couldn’t see why they would be interested in music album reviews. I then realised this would be a problem for all three of the reviewing ideas that I had in mind. So, I have decided to go with English Premiership football news. This idea would, I believe, work with all three target audiences.

In terms of technology that I am using, I can’t see anything beyond CSS with normal HTML. It would be great if I could find a way to incorporate XML into the design but in truth I do not feel confident enough to be using it at an assignment level. Since this assignment is design based, there is no need to create scripts that function logging in/forums etc, so sticking to what I know seems to be the safe bet. However, the addition of a simple page in XML, as long as it’s relevant, doesn’t seem to be such a bad idea.

This post will be dedicated to my thoughts on the upcoming assignment.

For the assignment, I have chosen to make it accessible to three different audiences.

• Standard web users
• Children
• Visually impaired users

Standard web users will have a broad range of options that are available for me to think about implementing. My design for standard web users will generally include, I suspect, a good colour scheme running consistently through the website, and with that consistency, the ability to understand where different parts of the website easily and without delay. This will mean that the layout must be designed in a well thought out way. The text should be simple to read and this means the font that I choose, along with it’s size, should be chosen with usability in mind. This design should basically be a simple one where simple is possible.

The design for children should realistically be quite different from a standard web user. I suppose I should define children as being 7 to 14 – and the first thing that comes to my mind is that the colour scheme will be different. This design will no doubt have a brighter design and more visual appeal to children, so the font and the colour scheme will have to be eye catching. The layout for the children’s design should not radically change from the standard web users design but my feeling is that the children’s design will be a lot bigger in different areas, so this must be taken into account. I also feel that the font type for a children’s design should be consistent but also (maybe) less professional looking than, say, Times New Roman. It should be something that a child could indentify with – something like Comic Sans springs to mind, but I will research the fonts that are available.

The other user group, for users with visual impairment/difficulties, should provide me with the necessity to change my design around a bit. I am certain that I require a bit more research into the needs of visually impaired users and I will take these needs into account when I make my design – initially there are a few things that I can think of. The first of which is that the layout needs to take as many accessibility features as I can think of (that are relevant, of course) – these include the necessity to add descriptions to my images, as they may not be able to see the picture clearly and need some alternative text in order to describe them. This of course does raise the point about how many images to use, but with each design, there should be no content difference (otherwise it would be unfair). The colour scheme requires a bit of thought. In theory, it should have an acceptable level of contrast, but the colours themselves do not have to be very interesting. For example, a black and white style may be more appropriate for a visually impaired user as this is easy to see, providing the font size is big enough where necessary.

I will be updating this blog soon with details of my webpage with CSS that I’ve been working on. This news will please my friend Barney who has been badgering me to update this blog.

For now, here is an example of a page in XML with CSS styling it. Here’s the CSS, and here’s the XML – this is Acitivity 801.

Activity 802 deals with links in XML which are styled with CSS – this will go… (to be continued)

I have learnt how to make XML pages and then style them – it seems initially like a complex task, particularly as I’ve never used XML before, but once you’ve got an initial style working then you can start to modify it further and create something you really want.

This post will show an example of a basic website constructed with CSS which is usable.

To be continued ;P

The site I am going to be reviewing for usability is the website belonging to my good friend Barney – I am sure he won’t mind – it is located here.

The website itself is for Barney to use his blog and to showcase his growing talent in web design.  The content itself is understandably quite low at this stage but it will no doubt rise. In any case, that does not stop me from critically reviewing it for usability.

Now, I know Barney likes usability in his website, and clearly this shows in his design. It is pleasant to look at and additonally I do not find myself being confused about anything. The way that the site is laid out says to me that no-one would genuinely have any problem remembering where the various pieces of content would be located.

In terms of specifics, I find the column size to work very well for what the website is trying to showcase. The colour scheme is also quite friendly on the eye and it’s constant throughout the website so the continuity remains.

The search scheme works well.

I can see no errors on any page – this shows that a lot of thought has gone into the website and being that it’s kept up to date frequently, there is little chance that it will develop errors either.

Finally, the links on the right hand site, in the Meta section, demonstrate many things -  mainly that not only is the webpage usable, it is also accessable.

This post is designed to demonstrate what usability is how to make webpages most usable using the advice that I have researched.

The following is taken from Jacob Neilsen’s website, which refers to all manners of usability advice.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html

“Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word “usability” also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process.

Usability is defined by five quality components:

• Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
• Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?“

Right – this blog shall detail my CSS page…

http://mikep85.pbwiki.com/f/activitywithoutcss.html
http://mikep85.pbwiki.com/f/activitywithcss.html
http://mikep85.pbwiki.com/f/mycss.css
–to be continued–

Here are my thoughts (and indeed, musings) on the advantages of using CSS.

- Using CSS makes it easier to maintain the entire website, as you can set the presentation style early on and then concentrate on making the content

- Saves time; one change affect all documents

- Makes sites faster and therefore it conserves bandwidth, as the file size is smaller; all the style setup is removed from the HTML

- Promotes consistency

- Superior styles in comparison with HTML – with CSS, you have much better control over the layout of your web pages. You can specify exactly how big a font will be, exactly where an element will be on a page, what the page will look like when printed, and much more

The disadvantage(s)

- CSS does not work consistently in different browsers