It’s become apparent we really aren’t focusing much on the accessibility needs of our aged population; and by aged I’m dumping middle-aged people like me in that group to – that’s anyone 40+.
Now I’m well on the way to being truly on the wrong side of 40, so these accessibly issues are starting to become noticeable day to day on a personal level. So this issue is a little personal.
By focusing on the aged community is not t to say we should ignore the needs of the traditional accessibility community. Just let’s give some consideration to the aged people too.
What happens when the usability of a system is bad, can the overall (user) experience of the system save the day?
How important really is usability to the big picture.
During a recent project I had the opportunity to observe (in an ethnographic capacity) people using a system that had an unending list of shortcomings.
In fact I still haven’t really found anything the system did well. Yes it was a UX horror story.
The people using the system where amazing, they had taken this poorly designed and contrived system and turned it into a workable, functioning, and productive series of procedures and sometimes supplementary systems.
There is no doubt content is important, no doubt it’s in fact more important than any design. It’s the primary thing that people come to a website for – the content.
So you would expect new sites to come out with perfect content.
Well we know it’s not the way, still we have websites with crap content.
All the other boxes are ticked, the design just works perfectly, there is a distinct visual experience when you arrive on the site. Even the information structure and labeling allows you to get to the right information.
Gary Barber
I’m an independent User Experience Consultant.
I design interfaces, build information architectures, prototypes, do UX research and conducting usability & accessibility tests and audits.
I can work within your existing team or as an external consultant on a contract or adhoc basis.
You can contact me via my company, radharc.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
