ALA 272: Accessible web video, better 404
In Issue No. 272 of A List Apart, for people who make websites:
This is How the Web Gets Regulated
by JOE CLARK
As in finance, so on the web: self-regulation has failed. Nearly ten years after specifications first required it, video captioning can barely be said to exist on the web. The big players, while swollen with self-congratulation, are technically incompetent, and nobody else is even trying. So what will it take to support the human and legal rights of hearing impaired web users? It just might take the law, says Joe Clark.
A More Useful 404
by DEAN FRICKEY
When broken links frustrate your site’s visitors, a typical 404 page explains what went wrong and provides links that may relate to the visitor’s quest. That’s good, but now you can do better. With Dean Frickey’s custom 404, when something’s amiss, pertinent information is sent not only to the visitor, but to the developer—so that, in many cases, the problem can be fixed! A better 404 means never having to say you’re sorry.
Tags: alistapart, closedcaptioning, captioning, captions, webvideo, video, accessible, accessibility, 404, error, reporting, usability, programming, design, webdesign, webdevelopment
Filed under: A List Apart, Accessibility, Code, Design, UX, User Experience, Web Design, architecture, development
I have a general question about website design. I recently got a client who wants to display her artwork as big as possible on her website so as to not take away from the ‘impact’
I know all about screen heights and widths but realized that viewport statistics are tough to come by. Do you know where and how I can get my hands on those?
Thanks!
There isn’t any known, reliable data on viewport statistics. The best thing I found was this discussion at webmasterworld lamenting the lack of data.
If your client’s budget permits, and your creative inclinations lie this way, you could create multiple layouts based on common viewports, using JavaScript and CSS to serve the appropriate layout (or swap layouts if the user resizes the window).
In this way, for the unknown percentage of web users capable of seeing the work huge, the client could show the work huge (not losing impact).
And for everyone else, she’d serve it at an appropriate size.
(In the absence of JavaScript on the client, you’d need to serve a modest size default.)
If your client has the money and you have the time, this would be an option.
Or you could advise your client to let you design a la Flickr, where a modest thumbnail size is shown, but the user can click through to larger versions if desired. That seems like the most sensible approach, particularly in the absence of any hard data about viewports.
Keep in mind, too, even if you had hard data on viewport use on x site or y site, it would mean nothing w/r/t your client’s site. (If I shared my site’s stats, you’d think everyone used Firefox or Safari, and half the web used Macs.) ;)
I am doing this site pro-bono for a friend’s mom. Budget is definitely an issue as she is paying me back in art =) I like the art so it’s ok…
2 questions -
1. Can you please point me to a reliable tutorial for the first option? Even if I don’t use this now, it’d be awesome to learn.
2. Doesn’t it make sense to do some sort of wide scale research into this? I was looking at the housingworks website and was wondering how you came up with that size to know when to fade that picture out for example…
Here’s the easiest thing to do: size everything, including the photos in ems. Don’t use pixels. Just ems. Google has plenty of links on em-based layout to keep you busy, including fine articles on A List Apart and blog posts by James Whittaker and Roger Johansson, among others.
No, it makes sense to check your site’s referrer logs, as the only statistics that matter are the ones that deal with your site’s visitors.
There’s no way to generalize those statistics. A percentage breakout of viewport stats from Amazon.com would not help the author of Blogging NIki know what to expect of her audience’s viewport, nor would Blogging Niki’s stats necessarily mean anything to AIGA.
On Housing Works, we had the benefit of working with extremely sophisticated and web-savvy clients who had years of data about the use of their website.
By contrast, you’re designing a free site for a friend’s mom. She has no data to review, because the site doesn’t exist. And, reading between the lines, she doesn’t know very much about web design; she only knows what she wants. Since you do have expertise, it’s up to you to educate her about the tradeoffs.
Thanks for the tip on em based design. I will look into that. You brought up a great point on educating our clients. How do you do this? I find it tricky to set expectations around features and timelines. I feel like I know enough to help set the right expectations but many clients want things done faster and better. As a somewhat new designer to business person convert, I struggle to offer my clients the best of my skills while also keeping them knowledgeable on why it takes a few months to turn around an entire site.
It is challenging, but it gets easier with experience.
thanks again for the off topic tips! i hope i didn’t violate your usage terms etc =)
I love it when you talk that way.
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