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Tuesday, November 6, 2007
A perfect example of how to make life difficult for your users
Whilst browsing through my local council website, I came across a link at the bottom of the site to an organisation called browsealoud. Browsealoud reads web pages aloud for people who find it difficult to read online. Reading large amounts of text on screen can be difficult for those with literacy and visual impairments.
Imagine the horror of a user with literacy or visual impairments coming to the homepage of the Browsealoud website for the first time and being presented with this:
If you have low literacy and reading skills, do you think you will understand a word they are saying about 'cookies' and 'browser's options menus'? All this is going to do is confuse the user and probably make them think they can't use the site!
Secondly, where are the options for these people with visual impairment? This website is targeted at these people and yet fails to cater for them on the very first page!
I would be very interested to see the bounce rates of this site. I can't believe someone hasn't raised this issue with them yet.
