David Nielsen

David Nielsen

May 1, 2008 11:39 AM
by David Nielsen

Accessibility (Blog Against Disablism Day)


Blogging Against DisablismToday is also Blog against Disablism Day. (Disablism is discrimination against people with diabilities.)

Accessibility is one of my top priorities in web development. It's important to me that everyone be able to access all of the information we put online. I try to provide alternate text for visual and aural information and for technology like JavaScript and Flash which can also be difficult to make accessible.

However, it's often an awkward discussion to bring up. I think that's because everyone agrees that accessibility is the right thing to do, but they almost never factor it in to their initial plan. Should I use the tools I'm supposed to and stick to the project plans, but end up with final products that aren't as accessible as I think they should be? If we assume there isn't a problem because no one has ever complained, are we being realistic or unethical?

I push for accessibility, and, as a web developer, I would welcome comments that would let me know and share actual problems that people have had with accessing information on the sites I work on.

1 comment

May 1, 2008 11:28 AM
by David Nielsen

RSS: You really should be using it


I use RSS, and you should too!Today is RSS Day. RSS will change your life if you are interested in keeping up with current news in any field. In short, RSS lets you read updates from many websites in one place, rather than going to each site individually to check for new articles.

In practice, RSS lets me easily monitor over 200 sites on a daily basis in a relatively small amount of time. I'm able to browse through news about web design, education technology, and other school districts, and read the articles that are actually good and useful.

Again, if you try to stay current or already monitor any website, adding RSS to your tools is the number one, best thing you could possibly do. I can't say enough good things about it.

0 comments

April 24, 2008 2:53 PM
by David Nielsen

Changing Edit Modes (School Center)


Edited screen capture of new mode SC menuEarlier this week, a couple of School Center reps contacted us and let us know that now would be a really good time to change the School Center GUI for 1000+ of our 1300+ users. Now now, as in "is this afternoon ok?" I gathered that the point of changing the GUI now is to make the actual new version rollout on June 27th -- when all of our users will have changes to the GUI -- a little smoother.

Miraculously, I didn't pass out and my hair didn't go gray, and we decided that two weeks from now, rather than now now might also work. The switch is minor, but based on what I've seen, I'm very concerned that it will result in confused teachers and a flood of Monday morning calls to me (not exciting but managable) and to other staff (not exciting and not fair to them). I've got about a week to get the word out it, and here's the plan:
  • I already setup a webpage with the details.
  • I added a Global Message which shows up on the first page everyone sees after they login.
  • An email should go out to everyone today.
  • Over the course of the next week, I'm going to try to email all of the Tech Dept people who don't officially support School Center but probably end up getting questions about it anyway
  • Again over the next week, I'm going to try to send out special emails to the Campus Web Site Administrators and Department Web Site Administrators letting them know that the change is minor and that they can switch early.

0 comments

April 21, 2008 10:36 AM
by David Nielsen

Problem with School Center documents

It looks like there is currently a problem with documents in School Center. Specifically, it's likely that documents that have already been uploaded can't be downloaded. It's also possible that new documents can't be uploaded. The problem may have started on April 19th and sporadically occurred through now.

Speculation: I think the problem is that the automatic backup tool that School Center has set-up keeps filling up the server's space. Between when problems were reported on Saturday and this morning, the server probably deleted a few old files, but once teachers started adding files again today, the server filled up again. On about February 15th, we had similar symptoms and that's what I was told when School Center was able to fix the problem.


If you see this because you are having problems with School Center, please contact me! I'm happy to help you out, and it's always helpful for me to know more about the problem, how widespread it is, and even whether anyone notices.

1 comment

April 8, 2008 1:15 PM
by David Nielsen

Web development considerations

Website development is a very interdisciplinary field. Most sites can get by with general consideration towards just two areas: design and organizing content. As sites grow, so do the opportunities for failure. Just to give an idea of the complexity that can be involved, here are a bunch of things of various levels of importance that have run through my mind while working with Carolyn on our current project. I stopped at about two pages, but this is nowhere near complete.

Accessibility
  • Are we using Flash in a way that would prevent people without Flash from accessing parts of the site?
  • How many of our users have the Flash player plug-in? What version?
  • Are we using JavaScript in a way that would prevent people without Flash from accessing parts of the site?
  • How many of our users surf with JavaScript on?
  • How are we going to handle ALT tags on images pulled from the database?
  • What’s the proper way to use ALT tags on other images?
  • Can I create a text-only version of the site in a reasonable amount of time without breaking the ‘normal’ site?
  • Do the behind the scenes admin tools need to have strong accessibility?
  • Does it affect our accessibility goals that students with certain disabilities are very likely to go to private schools?
  • Does it affect my accessibility goals that no one but me as ever thought of accessibility as a goal?
Content & Features & Information Architecture
  • What content are we putting on the site?
  • Are we going to duplicate content that’s already on department sites?
  • Are we deprecating department sites?
  • Are we aiming our content mostly towards district staff? Parents? Are we going to gear anything towards students? Should we spend much time worrying about community member who aren’t parents, students, employees, or volunteers?
  • Is anyone else going to be able to post content to our new project?
  • Are we going to allow comments on articles? What would that take technically? How long would it take each day to moderate them? Would there be a comments RSS feed?
  • What happens to the old databases? How much content do we move to the new databases?
  • What images do we need to accompany articles?
  • How long is it going to take to setup those images?
  • What database tables do we need?
  • What fields do each of those tables need?
  • Do I shoot for a specific normal form for the database?
  • Where do I balance database complexity against ease of use with Dreamweaver?
  • Which features do we try to have for the release and which wait for later?
  • How do we handle old pages? Is it worth contacting tech to try to get a custom 404 page setup that would give a link to new versions of old content? How many hits are we getting on old pages?
  • What resources do news media want to have? Do they want RSS feeds? Do they want articles about individual schools and teachers, or only major, major information? Which media outlets do we talk to answer these questions?
Design & Aesthetics
  • Background images
  • Page layout
  • Headline styles
  • Body text styles
  • Link styles
  • List styles
  • Quote styles?
  • Image styles
  • Menu / navigation styles
  • All of the above for each different type of page (around 3-10 page types)
  • All of the above should support flexible text length as well as possible
  • All of the above should be done with external CSS to help filesizes, etc
  • All of the above should be done with semantic HTML/XHTML and class/id names, as much as possible
Technical Concerns
  • What browsers do our visitors use now?
  • What browsers will our visitors be using when we go live?
  • What resolution do our visitors surf at now?
  • What resolution will our visitors be using when we go live?
  • What are the details of the new image rollout by the Tech Dept? When is it happening? What browsers will be included? What will the default resolution (and color-depth) be?
  • As web experts, should we try to influence what browser(s) are included in that image?
  • What percentage of our visitors are from HEBISD computers?
  • What connection speed do visitors from non-HEBISD computers have?
  • How many of our visitors are using mobile devices?
  • Can I create a mobile version of the site in a reasonable amount of time without breaking the ‘normal’ site?
  • What database are we going to use?
  • What server-side language are we going to use?
  • What HTML/XHTML version are we going to use?
  • What CSS level are we aiming for (or do we work towards browser support)?
  • What’s an acceptable range for filesize on HTML? Images?
  • Should JavaScript be external?
Usability
  • How much emphasis will there be on designing to common usability standards versus doing user testing after the fact to make improvements as necessary?
  • How much time would user testing take up? Can we find neutral users?
  • Does usability ever trump design?
  • How are we going to make sure that titles are usable?
  • How long should article teasers be?
  • What is our target for contrast ratio between text and background? This applies to headlines, body text, links, visited links, hover links, etc etc.
  • Make sure the search feature is usable and returns useful results
  • Does usability & web writing ever trump copy – can we rewrite for the web, adding emphasis on keywords, lists, subheadings, etc?
  • Does it affect my usability goals that I’m pretty much the only one pushing for usability?
  • Does our JavaScript / CSS / HTML / etc gracefully degrade?

1 comment

March 27, 2008 4:03 PM
by David Nielsen

Improve your website by listening to your audience

A recent article by UX Matters gave a very relevant example of web communication as part of the entire user experience:

While working with a company call center receiving about 300,000 calls/year, the article’s author found that about 55% of callers were asking one of three questions:

  • Where can I purchase product X
  • I have a broken product X; where can I get it repaired?
  • I have product X; how can I get a new copy of the product X manual?

Of course, all of this information was available on the company website. As a temporary solution, a message was added to the on-hold music to remind callers about the information on the website.

The result? The callers became more irate – it turns out that many callers had tried looking on the website and hadn’t found the information. In the end, the design of the website was adjusted to feature the information that visitors were most likely to need, resulting in 25% fewer calls to the call center.

The story emphasizes two great lessons:

First, online information must be easy to find or it might as well not be there. It’s not enough just to post information online.

Second, we should be very aware of all communications with stakeholders, whether they come through our department or not.

What are you doing to make online information easy to find, and where are you finding guidance on what information stakeholders are actually looking for on your district's website?

0 comments

March 11, 2008 12:10 PM
by David Nielsen

Internet Tip: Making shortcuts

You probably know how to add a page to your Favorites / Bookmarks. This is a great way to keep track of pages that you might want to revisit in the future.

Sometimes, though, there are webpages that you go to all the time. For me, those pages include the School Center login page and the Google Reader login page. For pages like this, I like to make shortcuts in places that are even easier to get to than my Bookmarks menu.

The key to easily making shortcuts is the icon next to the URL:

Example of a URL icon
If you click on this icon and hold the mouse button, you can drag the cursor to several different places and automatically create a shortcut to the page you currently have open.

  • Make a shortcut on your web browser's "Links" toolbar by dragging the icon to a place on that toolbar (shown below).
Example of the Links Bar
  • Make a shortcut on your desktop by dragging the icon to an open space on your desktop. If you double-click the icon, your computer will open the page in your web browser.
  • Make a shortcut on your computer's "Quick Launch" bar by dragging the icon next to (not on top of) the other icons at the bottom left corner of your computer screen (shown below). Like the desktop shortcut, if you click this icon, a web browser window will open and automatically go to the page you made the shortcut from.
Example of Quick Launch bar

A piece of advice: be judicious in creating shortcuts like this. If you create too many, it can easily become disorganized and you'll lose the benefit of having them in the first place.

0 comments

February 28, 2008 4:02 PM
by David Nielsen

School Center Tip: Creating useful links


Chain link fenceLinks are what separates the web from other media. If you want to use your website to its full potential, you should be using high-quality links to share high-quality resources with your visitors.

Actually use links. It can be tempting to just give directions: "Click on..., then click on..." There are a lot of reasons why this isn't a good idea (it takes longer, can get confusing, etc). Whenever you can, link straight to the information.

Write useful link text. The words that are linked should describe what you're linking to. For example, instead of saying "Click here to contact me and I'll help you out", say "Contact me and I'll help you out." Sometimes you can use the title of the page or document you're linking to. Sometimes, you'll have to re-write your sentence so that it has a good, short phrase you can use as a link.

Warn visitors when linking to something unusual. If you link directly to a PDF file, a Word file (.doc), or anything else that isn't a webpage or an image, warn your visitors. You may also want to warn visitors if what you're linking to is a really big file. For example:"Mr. Nielsen's Guide to Websites (PDF, 4MB) is very dry reading."

Don't underline or turn blue any text that isn't a link. On the web, underlines and the color blue universally mean "this text is a link", even if you don't use both. Any time you turn text blue or underline it when that text isn't a link, you are probably confusing and frustrating your visitors.

Only link to truly great resources. How many links have you clicked on that took you to a page that didn't really help? Or, how many times have you followed a link to a page full of ads? This is your chance to make a difference. On your site, only link to sites that are high quality, helpful resources.

(If you don't know how to create a link with School Center, you can follow the steps I've written or School Center's Advanced Content Editor tutorial, or you can contact me and I'll help you out.)

Photo credit: Chain Link Fence by clairity

2 comments

March 11, 2008 2:26 PM
by David Nielsen

Effective Presenting with PowerPoint

Lawrence Lessig
I don't frequently give presentations, but when I've got one on the horizon, I think back on all the boring presentations I've had to sit through. I'm sure those presenters spent a long time adding all those slides, bullet points, animations, and sounds, but I'm pretty sure they didn't spend any time thinking about what would actually be the most effective way to present.

So, I constantly try to learn about effective ways to use PowerPoint-style slides. In the interest of saving presentation audiences from hours of boredom, here are my two favorite methods so far:

10/20/30 Rule

Guy Kawasaki, a venture capitalist, has heard hundreds of lousy pitches from people who want to spend his money. As a response, he developed The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint:
"a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points..." (emphasis mine)
It turns out that reducing the amount of information in your slides is nearly universal advice. Your slides should be talking points (and maybe visual aids). If all you do is read from your slides, you are wasting your audience's time -- you would do better to hand out copies of your slides and let your audience read on their own time. However, you should not reduce the amount of information in your slides just to force people to listen to you.

Lessig Method

Lawrence Lessig, a renowned academic specializing in law (and pictured above), faces the challenge of explaining complex legal situations to a wide range of audiences. He has developed a presentation style (now known as the "Lessig Method") which is very visual and fast-paced but requires more preparation and practice.
  • Example 1 - Lessig's presentation at TED (described as "standing-ovation" good). Video that cuts back and forth between slides and Lessig himself at the lecturn.
  • Example 2 - Lessig's announcement video for Change Congress. Video that shows slides with recorded audio from Lessig.
The Lessig Method is difficult to describe. Lessig seems to take a truly excellent speech and add hundreds of slides that each accompany or illustrate a key point or idea. This is a sentence from a Lessig's talk at TED: "[slide with sepia-tone photo of man in uniform] In 1906 this man, John Phillip Sousa, traveled to [slide with photo of US Capital building] this place, the United States Capital to [slide with photo of small brass-colored machine] talk about this technology, what he called the quote 'talking machine'." The slides sometimes feature pictures, but often they feature a single word or phrase in large letters. Later slides often cross out or add words to help show the relationship between "old ways" and "new ways" of approaching the topic.

Conclusion

Although the 10/20/30 Rule and Lessig Method are opposing styles, they both are effective because they take into account the main idea of presenting:
As a presenter, your audience expects you to take a large amount of information and give them the key points that they need to know.
With this in mind, here is how I recommend approaching a presentation:
  1. Know your topic inside out. Read relevant blog posts (and blog archives). Read articles on websites about the topic. Find one or two key books that the blogs recommend and at least skim them. Ask your friends what parts of the topic are relevant to their lives and their work.
  2. Identify the most important key points for your audience. - This is truly an art. If you get this right, you'll know it, and everything else will fall into place.
  3. Choose a presentation style that suits you and the circumstances of the presentation. Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule is a good guideline for nearly all situations. The Lessig Method is very impressive when done well, but requires much more preparation than most presentations ever need. Of course, there are other methods out there, but these seem to be two of the most popular and successful.
  4. Develop your presentation & slides, trying hard not to add any more information than you need to.
  5. Practice your presentation. Don't be afraid to change it! If something doesn't feel right, you should change it until it clicks.
  6. Present!

1 comment

February 28, 2008 1:32 PM
by David Nielsen

Web Usability and Accessibility Presentation

Slide 1 of presentation

"Web Usability and Accessibility" (no login required, click "View published presentation in a new window") is a presentation I gave in October (2007) for a group of local school district webmasters. I'm a big fan of web usability/accessibility, so my biggest challenge was coming up with a short presentation. My original PPT file has notes, and it was intended to be presented live, but the key points should be on that online version and I'll outline them below. I'd love to elaborate and clarify, just ask.

Outline

  • Accessibility is making information available for all users. Section 508 should be your main accessibility guide and consideration (for practical purposes).
  • Usability is making information easier to use for your typical users. Ideally, users should quickly understand the layout, and the site should be efficient to use.
  • There are many sets of usability guidelines, but testing with actual users is by far the best way to improve usability.

0 comments

February 13, 2008 3:53 PM
by David Nielsen

Doodle 4 Google contest

Google has announced a contest called Doodle 4 Google, inviting K-12 students to submit an alternate version of the company's logo. And, just like their special holiday logos, the best logo will be used on their site for 24 hours.

Seems like a good opportunity for talking about the connection between art class and careers in commercial art / graphic design, if you don't mind bringing in a little bit of corporate influence.

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