New Software Simplifies Building Accessible and Usable Websites; Nielsen Norman Group and UsableNet Collaborate on Development.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2002 According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a recent HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. Writers Guild survey (July 2002), nearly 50% of web developers consider website accessibility for people with disabilities an absolute requirement. Still, websites today are three times harder to use for users with disabilities than for other users according to test data from Nielsen Norman Group Nielsen Norman Group is a usability consulting company created by well-known user experience experts Donald Norman, Jakob Nielsen, and Bruce Tognazzini. Besides these three principals, there are many lesser known experts in the company. The company was founded in 1998. ("Beyond ALT Text (ALTernate text) On a Web page, a text description that can be added to the HTML tag that displays an image. The ALT text is displayed by the browser when the cursor is moved over the picture. If pictures are turned off in the browser, the ALT text is automatically displayed instead. " 2001). Nielsen Norman Group and UsableNet expect to remedy this imbalance with the introduction of new software that automates website usability and accessibility testing and repair. The software, entitled "LIFT-Nielsen Norman Group Edition," runs on Macromedia(R) Dreamweaver(R), and is now available at http://www.usablenet.com. "Developers know that building accessibility into websites is the right thing to do, but in the grand scheme of things it often gets pushed down on the priority list," said Jakob Nielsen Jakob Nielsen can mean:
LIFT-Nielsen Norman Group Edition offers the first-ever integrated design The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. Please help [ improve the introduction] to meet Wikipedia's layout standards. You can discuss the issue on the talk page. wizard to include usability guidelines. The software identifies common usability issues related to accessibility, and then presents and automates recommended fixes based upon research conducted last year by Nielsen Norman Group and reported in "Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users with Disabilities." The tool also includes World Wide Web Consortium (W3C (World Wide Web Consortium, www.w3.org) An international industry consortium founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee to develop standards for the Web. It is hosted in the U.S. by the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT (www.csail.mit.edu/index.php). ) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of Web accessibility guidelines published by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. They consist of a set of guidelines on making content accessible, primarily for disabled users, but also for all user agents, and guidelines recommended in Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1974. "This is the first time that research knowledge has been brought into the design environment in a practical and economical way," said Paolo Brajnik, UsableNet founder and chairman, "The information is all there, right at their fingertips "Fingertips" is a 1963 number-one hit single recorded live by "Little" Stevie Wonder for Motown's Tamla label. Wonder's first hit single, "Fingertips" was the first live, non-studio recording to reach number-one on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the United States. , working like spell-check, for Web developers to design websites that are technically accessible and easy to use for people with disabilities, and therefore for everybody." Features of LIFT -- Nielsen Norman Group Edition Integrated into the authoring tool -- All features work within Macromedia Dreamweaver to allow seamless testing and repair; Access to researched usability knowledge based upon extensive user testing conducted by Nielsen Norman Group; Fix Wizard -- Automates the repair process with a simple step-by-step tool that guides developers through the repair of tables, images, scripts, tabbing order, cascading menus and more; Monitor -- Checks work as it's done. It is always cheaper to fix mistakes before they are perpetuated on multiple web pages; JavaScript Analyzer -- Avoids common errors when using JavaScript; ALT Text Editor -- Manages all images across an entire website with automated and global ALT editing tool while using Nielsen Norman Group principles to create relevant ALT text; Customizable Tests -- Allows customization of usability test parameters. Availability LIFT-Nielsen Norman Group Edition is available now for purchase for $549. Orders and demo requests can be placed at http://www.usablenet.com. About Nielsen Norman Group Nielsen Norman Group (http://www.nngroup.com) is a user-experience think tank that advises companies on how to succeed through human-centered design of products and services. Nielsen Norman Group principals Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman and Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini are each world-renowned experts in usability and human use of technology. Besides authoring books and evangelizing about user experience, they and the other user-experience specialists at Nielsen Norman Group offer high-level strategic consultation on usability of websites, consumer products, software designs and anything else that needs to be easy-to-use. Media contact is Darcy Provo, darcy@antennagroup.com; 415/977-1920. About UsableNet Headquartered in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. , UsableNet (http://www.usablenet.com) develops Web productivity solutions that target Web designers, Web developers, Web masters, and IT professionals in the Corporate, Government, Education, and Graphic Arts graphic arts: see aquatint; drawing; drypoint; engraving; etching; illustration; linoleum block printing; lithography; mezzotint; niello; pastel; poster; silk-screen printing; silhouette; silverpoint; sketch; stencil; woodcut and wood engraving. markets. Available in the form of software applications and online services, UsableNet products enable users to reduce website development and maintenance time, improve the Web experience for site visitors, and standardize Intranet and Internet content across development teams by helping them to incorporate usability and accessibility principles. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion