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ContentIdentify information content In the user/audience analysis, users are asked to rate different topics according to their level of interest in them. When you begin designing, identify the information content that your target audience found most interesting and that will best fulfill your purpose. Plan content that utilizes web technology in unique and appropriate ways Users will be drawn to your site if you present your ideas and materials in ways that they could not find in other media. For instance, providing users an area where they can exchange fruit recipes is something they might enjoy, which no other media form can offer. Design your site so that it is accessible to a full range of users Provide support for users with physical, environmental, and/or technical limitations. Physical limitations include varying degrees of vision, hearing, mobility or cognitive impairment. Environmental limitations include poor lighting and a noisy work place, and technical limitations stem from lower-version browsers, low display resolutions, low settings for number of colors displayed, and slow modems. The Ease of Use Web guidelines offered here contain information throughout to assist you in creating an accessible Web site. For a checklist on making sites accessible to users with disabilities, refer to IBM's Web Accessibility Guidelines. Plan to give users content that will format correct in their browsers Old browsers do not support frames or JavaScript. Also, only newer browsers such as Netscape 4.x and IE 4.0 will interpret Java applets. If you want your site to be viewed by people who use older browsers or screen readers, you can either provide a version of your site that does not use these new technologies, or you can use new technologies only as a way of supplementing your other content. For example, assume that you want to offer a web page with a video of how to carve a pineapple. For people with browsers that cannot display the video, you may choose to provide another version of the page that does not feature the video. Or, you may choose to maintain only one version of the page and provide the video as a way to augment detailed textual instructions of the same information. If you choose to provide multiple versions of certain pages in your site, you can use language script such as JavaScript to detect the type of browser and serve the compatible page. (To download the code for a browser sniffer, see "Browser Compatibility" in the "Production" section.) Obtain URLs that will enable users to find your site easily To enable users to find your site and your product information easily, we recommend placing product information within your company domain. In other words, instead of creating specific domains for your products (www.widget.com), use standard URL formats that place the most important product information within the company domain (www.acme.com/widget). When 69 web users were asked in a survey what URL they would expect to use to find information about the Acme Widget,
When respondents were asked to create a preferred URL for the Acme Widget,
Sometimes product names are better known than company names. If a significant contingent of your audience is likely to look for your product at www.productname.com, secure the domain name and create a pointer from that address to your product page. By using pointer pages, your users will learn about your company and your other offerings. |
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