Have user skills improved on the web? “Even though users are remarkably good at repeated tasks on their favorite sites, they’re stumped by the smallest usability problems when they visit new sites for the first time.” Jakob Nielsen’s recent study suggest that usability guidelines remain constant.
“In our opinion, disability rights groups, legislators and standards bodies place too much emphasis on adherence to the WCAG cookbook and not enough on creating sites that are accessible in practice. As a result, most businesses are incentivised to just “check the accessibility boxes” rather than to ensure that their sites are actually accessible to real-life disabled users.”Etre elaborating on Aaron’s cookbook post
Fun cartoon from A List Apart article on design frameworks by Jeff Croft
(art by Kevin Cornell)
But… I wonder if the illustration makes the same point as the article. The fun in snowman-making is in the whole process—creation from scratch! Who wants to put together a snowman kit? Illustration nitpicks aside, good article on how design frameworks, libraries, and best practices can make your design life easier. We’re making slow but steady progress in this direction here at the Church, including an adaptation of Yahoo grids for many web apps.