Ruth Ellison on user experience design, usability and accessibility
December 25th, 2005 — General
I’ve barely gotten used to the fact that it’s 2005….and it’s now Christmas Day, with 2006 peeking around the corner.
Some interesting Christmassy links:
And this is how Santa gets around Australia - on the back of a ute:
So have a very Merry Christmas/Festivus/< insert some non-denominational-politically-correctness-gone-mad phrase here >!
December 12th, 2005 — Accessibility
The call for review of the draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 was mentioned multiple times at last week’s OZeWAI conference.
All comments should be sent in by 21st December 2005.
December 11th, 2005 — Accessibility
I’m back from this year’s OZeWAI conference, held at La Trobe University in Melbourne. The focus of the conference is accessibility and adaptability of the web. The program included a range of speakers from various backgrounds, including (but not limited to):
Some of the key topics that stuck in my mind included adaptability (about adapting the web to the user rather than having the user adapt to the web), the different types of disabilities and accessibility testing. There were many more topics covered during the conference as can be seen by the program.
Vision impairment is one of the most talked about areas of accessibility, but it is important to keep in mind that there are other disabilities that we, as web designers, must design for. In regards to the other types of disabilities, cognitive disabilities are an area that still requires a lot more work. It can be one of the harder areas of disabilities to design for, due to lack of knowledge within this area, and also the diversity that’s within the “cognitive” category.
One of the best things about this conference is getting to meet other people who are also interested in this area of accessibility, and whom many are heavily involved in moving accessibility forward.
Many thanks to Liddy Nevile and her team for organising this conference. Thanks very much to Shane Anderson, his lovely wife, Rachelle and their gorgeous baby Ella, and Paul Bohman who, despite it being very out of their way, rescued me when I was stranded at the wrong Safeway in Melbourne (who would have thought that there were three Safeways in a row! And why is it called Safeway instead of Woolworths?). Despite all that hassle, we enjoyed a delicious dinner at Namaste Indian Restaurant.
My OZeWAI Flickr photos are now available. Here’s a quick preview:
December 4th, 2005 — Life
With all of the bad news about at the moment, this is a totally frivolous post about some of my clothes/accessories finds in Perth, while I’ve been out and about doing various chores for mum.
The first is Back in time, located in The Lakes Shopping Centre, at North Lake Road, South Lake, Western Australia. Don’t be deceived by the discount feel of the shopping centre. It hides this gem of a shop, which stocks beautiful designer clothing, handbags (my favourite Olga berg designer bags), jewellery, gifts etc. There’s such a range of interesting stuff. I could easily have spent more time there, but I had to get mum home to rest.
The other is Ice Accessories. There’s a few branches in Perth, but the one I’ve been to is Shop 45/425, in Perth Forrest Chase. It stocks the latest accessories at very cheap prices (about $5 upwards!). It mostly stocks costume jewellery, but there are some bags, a tiny selection of cheap scents, and various lip glosses etc. I first discovered this store on my last trip to Perth earlier this year.
The final is a clearance outlet named X Dream. It can be found at Shop 4 of the Concourse (Perth central train station, opposite Angus & Robertson bookstore). Lots of the latest fashions at cheap prices. It’s a pity that I don’t like the current gypsy look, else I would have gone nuts in there.
Of course there’s always Harbour Town (why don’t we have anything like this in Canberra?).