Accessibility / Usability

Usability - putting users first. Accessibility - so everyone can use it.

Usability

It’s not just about the navigation.

Usability is about the ‘user journey’ or ‘user experience‘ whilst viewing your website. Brainstorming sessions (and in some cases the use of willing participants) can help identify the primary objectives for your users. We can then use our findings to create the most intuitive & logical way to reach any given page or piece of information, ultimately making your website more usable.

We also consider you, the site administrator as a user, so if your website requires a back-end system such as a CMS (Content Management System) or administration system to manage the content of your website, we also ensure these are intuitive and easy to use.

Read about foxyMS - our tailor-made Content Management System.

Accessibility

The visually impaired and people with other physical disabilities view websites the same way as other users do, so it is important to cater for everyone when designing & developing a website. This is called Accessibility. Accessible sites allow everybody to read them whether it be via a conventional web browser, screen reader, text browser like Lynx or even hand-held devices such as mobile phones.

The main thing to keep in mind is that everything needs to be readable as text, so that means a text based alternative must accompany all non-text elements such as flash, images & javascript.

The generated code of your website will be written in XHTML1.1 and CSS 2.0. The code will be 100% valid, well-formed and semantically named and marked up. This ensures that all devices including screen readers and handheld devices e.g. mobile phones etc will render the pages as intended. Older web browsers will also interpret the code as intended, although the presentation may ‘degrade’ (appear unformatted).

As with Web Standards, accessibility conformance is not required by law but are evident in the Web Standards & Recommendations set by the New Zealand Government & will some day be enforced. Because we're forward thinkers, we produce your site and ensure it is compliant to the highest standards set by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) UK and NZ Government Web Standards and Recommendations v2.0.