I was just reading an ESPN article about the Final Four action in the NCAA tonight when I noticed a little accessibility pet peeve of mine worth mentioning. ESPN, like a number of other websites, has a handy little text-resizing widget on the side of articles (it's a little buried down there in the right column) that uses a little bit of javascript and css to increase the text size to make it more readable. This is great for people who have difficulty seeing small text and who don't know how to increase their text size using their browser's built-in functionality.
However, ESPN and even Wired News, which also has this feature, identify the widget's use in miniscule little text. The text is actually smaller than the standard 11 pixel Tahoma font on my Windows machine. If this feature is a bonus for accessibility, wouldn't it make more sense to make the text legible to those who have difficulty reading small text? Don't get me wrong, the two example sites I identifed are extremely well designed generally, but this minor issue seems to be an oversight (pun just discovered and it is completely unintended).
Comments
Richard - April 4, 2005 2:18 am
ABC News has the exact same problem, although at least their links are fairly large. Link. And Fast Company too but their links unlike some of these others are nice that they appear on every page consistently.
Craig - April 4, 2005 1:17 pm
It’s a tough call for designers, since the functionality is actually secondary to the content on the page (and on properly styled pages, duplicates the features already available in Web browsers — but that’s a topic for another day).
Personally, I try to ensure they have descriptive tooltips (via a title, generally) when asked to implement them; and then only display the tool if the browser supports the functionality (i.e., proper JavaScript support). It’s not a perfect solution, but at least, in my mind, it preserves the design idea while offering a clear explanation to the user.
Justin Perkins - April 13, 2005 6:42 pm
Funny you are pointing out sites which were all redesigned by standards zealots. ESPN and CBS News was led by Mike Davidson, hence the likely similarities between the sites.
I've often wondered that myself, why is the resize button so dang small. I just don't get it. It should be big and as obvious as possible. Maybe large sites that have so much content (ESPN, CBS News, CNN, etc...) need to follow some convention of putting usability/accessibility features in a pseudo-toolbar that sits at the very top of the document body.
I would think that is the first place people would look for resize buttons and stuff...the upper left corner.
matty - May 3, 2005 11:08 am
See what i'm meaning here Daniel? Too technical! Dumb it down a bit. Lets have more discussions on who was the greatest smurf...
Joe Clark - May 3, 2005 3:25 pm
Options:
* Shading or borders to make it noticeable but unobtrusive.
* Fade-anything technique to highlight it for the first five seconds of your page (or preferably site) visit.
* Unusual colour scheme (e.g., grey on black) that doesn't look like page content or an ad.
* (Most usefully) Put more than one of them on a page. How about one just under the story headline?
And, yeah, tooltips.
Adam Michela - May 4, 2005 11:39 am
+1 vote for the Fade Anything Technique ;)