May 11th, 2010 2:02 am by Vincent Flanders
Vincent Flanders’ comments: For some reason, I decided to look at the White House’s home page. The top part of the page looks fine but, as I went down the page, the old bugaboo about contrast popped up. It’s especially problematic because the White House has a link at the bottom of the page that discusses accessibility . Ironically, the link is hard to read because of the lack of contrast.
I ran the page through AccessColor and was told:
Both color difference and color brightness do not meet the recommended standard for 2.88% of the total text.
Either color difference or color brightness does not meet the recommended standard for 20.77% of the total the text.
Text on background with images is for 47.93% of the total text. (Which makes it impossible for them to figure out the contrast levels.)
Here’s a screen capture of the results for those who don’t want to rerun the test.
As far as how well the site performs, I ran the home page through Zoompf and here were the results:
Performance issues with the home page
of whitehouse.gov
|
Critical |
High |
Medium |
Low |
1 |
14 |
14 |
16 |
Here’s a screenshot of Zoompf’s analysis.
On a more positive note: Whitehouse.gov scored 72 (C) on Yslow and scored an 81 on Page Speed.
Whitehouse.gov
Posted in Daily Sucker, Usability, Web Design |
April 27th, 2010 5:05 am by Vincent Flanders
I hate forms. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, WPTS is a form-free zone. However, they’re insanely important for most sites and here’s “Best Practices in Form Design,” a free, downloadable, 133-page PDF (4.37Mb) from the guy who wrote the book on forms.
Download the PDF
Posted in Not a Daily Sucker, Twitter, Usability, Web Design, You Should Read |
April 20th, 2010 3:03 am by Vincent Flanders
Today, April 20 — which is Hitler’s birthday — seems like a good time to talk about a disturbing trend in web design.
Read the article
Posted in Daily Sucker, Usability, Web Design |
April 8th, 2010 8:08 pm by Vincent Flanders
Since it’s my policy not to comment on web designers’ sites, I won’t comment on any of these 10 selections by iMediaConnecion. Let me just say “10 awesome agency websites” is their article title.
10 awesome agency websites
Posted in Twitter, Web Design, You Should Read |
March 5th, 2010 3:03 am by Vincent Flanders
Submitter’s comments: Here’s one that really sucks!
Vincent Flanders’ comments: Yes, but it sucks in such an interesting way. Here’s a screen shot of what the home page looks like to the average visitor. Here’s what I find “amusing:”
- The focus is definitely the logo. Even so, what does that buy you? I suspect most people who end up at the site know where they’re going. The web is all about expectations and your job, as a designer, is to meet those expectations. Logos are supposed to be unobtrusively “there” at the top-left of the page.
- If you’re using horizontal navigation, it’s supposed to be at the top of the first screen — not down in the middle.
- I realize it’s a golfing site, but the golf clubs are not a good idea to use for your navigation.
- Fortunately, you can read most of the text — because it’s quite large and has to be large because it’s white on a black background.
- The TITLE tag on the home page is “home page,” which isn’t very helpful for search engine optimization purposes. Speaking of SEO, I’m taking an ADHD detour here to mention Google’s own SEO Report Card. The description is at the Webmaster Central Blog. It talks about their failure to meet their own guidelines (which include the TITLE tag) and there’s a 49-page PDF file you should read.
- There are pictures at the bottom of the page which seem to be centered, but they clash with the bottom navigation which tries to be centered.
- The subpages are too long.
There’s lots more, but this list is a start.
Southern Crescent Tour
Posted in Daily Sucker, Usability, Web Design |