Semantic HTML

Many designers have different conceptual ways in which they begin their web sites. When I create a site, I structure it as follows:

1. Create (X)HTML markup (separating top/content/navigation/footer areas with divs)
2. Create content for page
3. Use PHP for inclusion of common navigation areas (breadcrumb, sidebar, etc)
4. Use PHP for inclusion of header
5. Use PHP for inclusion of footer

Once it validates – then (and only then) do I create the external CSS file for it. Let me say that besides making sure you SEO the markup (source order, meta, keyword densities, etc.), accessibility is integrated every step of the way.

Once the site passes the standard WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) checklists (A, AA, AAA) – I begin my usability testing. So this my simple test of usability. You can get very detailed in your testing, but for the sake of the
title of this post, let me ask you to run this test on your sites. And also, do you run any type of usability test for your designs?

Here’s what I do, and let me know what you do:

1. Load my page, and squint my eyes (Yes, I’m serious). Can I still read the content, and differentiate between background/foreground colors?
2. Next I move my mouse out of reach (like behind my desk). Now, just using my keyboard, can I navigate my entire site?

Of course, this is an extremely simple test…but what do you all do for your usability testing?

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This is not something which is unknown to others but we have tried to give you some expert knowledge about usability to you all.

If you are someone who is interested in and want to gain more knowledge about this topic, you have come to the right place. You would find almost everything that is to be found on in this article.

Without great and awesome web accessibility, the content of your website will be too hard to reach for some. And that means that your site’s as useful as a kite without any wind. Here are some weblog tips and tricks to improve the usability and accessibility of your website. Why is that important? Well, it’ll ensure your site functions as optimal as possible.

The first method is to make sure the size and use of fonts within your content is suitable. If you have really big blocks of contextual text, make sure to use Cascading Style Sheets to space out the textlines appropriately. The longer a single textline is, the more the line-height should be. And also you need to make sure the font size of your text is big enough for easy reading. Some websites I have been to use 10px text in Tahoma font; while that may look cool, your users have to strain their eyes to read the content.

You should also make sure your website is easy for visitors and search engines to search for content that they want. If you have houndreds of articles, and visitors find one single article from all of them, you should provide usable means to enable your visitor to be able to do that without issue. Either an SQL database used website, or seo tips weblog, or a simple image directory, if you provide the features that users want, they’ll revisit your site – and like it!

Another tip is to make sure your website will load quickly. Unless you want to lose visitors! Most web users today’ll leave a site if it doesn’t load up within 15 to 20 seconds. So you need to make sure the best of your website is loaded for your users as quicly as possible. You want to retain your users, afterall.

The last tip for today is a simple one, and it’s called, Quality Control. See, make sure that every link on your website is active and loads quickly – before you begin your website marketing. Really, there’s nothing more that will tarnish your professionalism than a few broken links on your site, so I suggest you use Quality Control on your website.

We wanted to provide you with an article on Usability In Your Websites that could be different from what one generally finds on the net. And after reading it, if you feel that this is the case, our efforts have paid dividends.

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