Accessibility Trend

We're all used to verifying our human identity by entering a combination of alphanumeric soup-like characters displayed on the screen into a text field when registering for an account on many high-trafficked, B2C web sites. Its a common and acceptable practice that on web forms requiring users to input their personal information, that there is a visual verification system in place geared at determining whether the user is human or a computer program. Unwanted spamming and other programs can affect the user experience both in terms of service quality and information security.

But there's a new trend upping the ante on that feature and making it more accessible to users with disabilities - particularly, those with low-vision or blindness. Google, including Blogger, and Hotmail have added an auditory capability to the verification process so that users can opt to listen to the verification code being read to them versus being required to see and read it only. This feature is usually identified by a loudspeaker or wheelchair icon. I found Hotmail's implementation of this feature to be the most elaborate allowing users to toggle between the picture and audio version, request a new CAPTCHA picture, instructionally intensive, and multi-stepped as once the user clicks on the audio icon, they don't get audio as expected until they click another button to play the audio. At one point, an error message was painted on the screen that the audio was temporarily unavailable. In the case of Google and Blogger, I received an error message when I clicked on the wheelchair icon that there was no software update available from Real to support the content.

On a somewhat tangential note, only some sites explain why this verification step is important to the predominantly account creation or transaction process. Although most users have probably encountered this step in their web-past, it is still one of those things that can still warrant some explanation for first-time users. This is possibly a good example of where your web system needs to be able to cater to everyone, at their level, i.e. the more experienced as well as new users (either to the web or your site) and as well as to less able-bodied users.

It's somewhat surprising that it has taken as long as it has for many of these sites but I commend their efforts in this direction and hope others follow suit. It may not yet be perfection; but, it's an example of innovation and growth in our industry towards universal design and greater overall user experience for all.

Mobi-licious

So, I tried out mobile blogging (see my previous post) and liked it quite a bit — once I semi- got it to work! It took a few tries unfortunately; the process was fraught with seeming roadblocks. I started to find the experience a little frustrating. It was, granted, a combination of human and application error. I got a couple of delivery status failure notifications; I sent my one post using sms versus mms initially...just used to texting I guess. This was not clearly stated on the Blogger instructions page. Blogger also mentions go.blogger.com and go@blogger.com. I think I inadvertently sent one post to the former; clearly that didn't work. I tried several times posting a photo but never recieved any messaging that it failed as it certainly didn't work for some unknown reason. Also, when my below post was delivered successfully, the text message I received stated that my post would be posted shortly but gave no indication of what shortly meant; it wasn't 5 minutes!

For many of us, our mobile devices are an extension of our arms. We feel incomplete without it. So, for us mobile addicts and would-be addicts, being able to blog about some great tidbit from a conference, while on-the-go, simply for the geeky fun of it, or just because we can, is a super handy capability to have at our finger tips — so to speak. The klunkiness of the experience needs to be improved upon lest users should get worn down by its shortcomings. Maybe, common system errors and known issues should be made available; I didn't see any.

I haven't ventured to the audio blogging feature but I am sure I will fall victim at some point. It apparently allows you to call Blogger from your phone and leave a message that is posted to your blog as an MP3 audio file.

BTW...I am still trying to get my blog post cum pic actually posted! Give it a try yourself and let me know what you think! Happy mo-blogging!

Mobile Blogging

I am trying out Blogger's mo-blogging feature. Here goes!

Using Web 2.0 to Improve the User Experience

Some of the things that I really like about the heightened interactivity and dynamism of the web are all the cool things it affords us in the ongoing quest to provide the ultra user experience (UX). And I don't mean having things flashing and moving all over the page but sophisticated, appropriate, and meaningful usage to provide a more responsive, engaging, and interactive experience. Surfing the web is not a passive activity and lets face it, most of us are mostly online....even when we are channel surfing, we are probably web surfing. And we can also get a lot of our TV content online as well. So, our online activities are getting richer and richer in experience by virtue of the content and interaction new technologies such as AJAX and the like enable.

There are many examples I can point to but some practical ones involve form elements such as:
- dynamic form field hints (see Yahoo example to the right.)
- inline text editing (Flickr is an example of where this is used for editing photo captions and tags.)
- rich text formatting for text area boxes (bolding, bulleting, etc.)
- dynamic form field limiter notification (informs users how many characters are remaining for a password field, for example.)
- inline or in-page windows/panes for functionality such as for displaying live and external content such as rss feeds or search results. (see Google example to the right.)
- in-place login windows (the Blogger sign in is an example of this.)
- adding other visual elements such as customizing your cursor to include a question mark,"?", can be useful for a help section of a web app.

The downside of all of this is that more interactivity and dynamic functionality can mean more code and heavier pages. So, we need to all use these technologies judiciously and sparingly so as to enhance the UX, not encumber it!