Re: accessibility and usability

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, Roy Schestowitz wrote:

Barbara de Zoete wrote:

[F'up set to ciwas-d]

F'up honoured...

Accessibility is concerned with design that accommodates the need of
disabled people (usually).

I would put it broader than that. I'd say it relates to accessing the
web from all kinds of less-usual browsing situations, of which
disability access is an important example.

For example, if you are near-sighted or blind (and hence _listen_ to
Web pages), you want the page to have properties that make it
friendly to you.

For example, yes.

Accessibility is a subset of usability, I suppose.

"Usability" is still an issue even with a normally-able user in a
mainstream browsing situation.

It is one aspect that makes a page easier to _use_, by all
audiences. This leads to the definition of 'usability'. Usability
can be explained in terms of ease of navigation (How do I get
to...), good context (where am I inside the Web site?), etc.

Yes, and many other things involved with actually using a web site.
Can I bookmark this position, and revisit it later, and send the
bookmark to a friend? Will the URL overflow the customary 72 chars in
plaintext mail? Can I use the form to make a similar enquiry without
having to re-type all the details that were the same as before? Will
I have to disable the author's low-contrast colours to be able to read
the text at my default size, or disable the author's size to read the
text at their colours, or both? Just to take random examples.

imho