I need WHAT? to see your site?

Yesterday, we had a couple of vivid examples of flashy exciting websites becoming totally inaccessible to users in ways the designer probably had not imagined.

First, the nye site http://nyelabs.com/ required plugins and recent versions of Flash player that the school network had not installed. Bummer. It's a cute site, and it might be fun to investigate all the features that it incorporates...if only we could actually SEE it!

Second, the BOOK site http://www.lookatbook.com/ used some obscure links (available only to the terminally curious) to get to the "about us" pages (and obscure backlinks), as well as a popup for their "shop," which would certainly not be visible to those who have blocked popups.

All in all, our analyzing websites session was instructive, and (I hope) fun to see a tiny bit of what is out there on the web, in the interest of learning how to make better websites.

Don't Make Me Think!

The best reference I can suggest for usability and accessibility philosophy is Steve Krug's book, "Don't Make Me Think."

Google it or look it up on Amazon. You can pick it up used for not much money. 

http://www.sensible.com/

Steve has a sense of humor and if you can develop your intuition to include his philosophy, you will be well on the way to understanding your users and how to design websites for them.

Look him up!