User-Lab to host West Midlands’ web accessibility workshop

Written by Elemental PR


Continued from page 1

The workshop, to be held on 23 June 2004 (from 10:00 until 16:30) at User-Lab (Birmingham Institute of Art and Design http://www.biad.uce.ac.uk/), costs £50.00 GBP and is free to members of The Usability Professionals' Association http://www.ukupa.org.uk/ and British HCI Group http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/.

The media spokesperson for User-Lab is John Knight, Usability Engineer.

About User-Lab: http://www.biad.uce.ac.uk/research/userlabSite/user.html

User-Lab is a non-profit making organisation based at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design http://www.biad.uce.ac.uk/. The lab is part ofrepparttar Institute’s Research Department and is staffed by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in digital media design, human-computer interaction, psychology and software engineering.

The lab comprises three purpose built testing and design labs that are equipped withrepparttar 132569 latest technology for conducting behavioural, physiological and psychological research. The lab has two related functions: to carry out research intorepparttar 132570 digital experience and, based onrepparttar 132571 results of this work, to develop an innovative commercial service.

Inrepparttar 132572 two years since its inception,repparttar 132573 lab has been involved in a number of collaborative projects with RDAs, FEs, charities andrepparttar 132574 public and private sector. The outcomes of these projects range from assisting start up businesses to training, as well asrepparttar 132575 lab’s core business of user-centred design services.

User-Lab runs Web Accessibility Training withrepparttar 132576 Royal National Institute forrepparttar 132577 Blind (RNIB) http://www.rnib.org.uk/ and ECOTEC an international research and consultancy organisation http://www.ecotec.com/.

----Contact----

Elemental PR:

Rachel Hawkes, Account Executive, Elemental PR Email: user-lab@elementalpr.co.uk

Direct Telephone: +44 (0)870 745 9292, Mobile: +44 (0)7930 375663, Fax: +44 (0)870 745 9293, Website: http://www.elementalpr.co.uk

Address: Second Floor, 145 -157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, England, UK

####



Elemental PR: The public relations consultancy


Sites That Make Sense

Written by Stephanie Cordray


Continued from page 1

Graphical Content Backgrounds and other graphics used should fit withrepparttar textual content. Think back torepparttar 132568 bank and game sites comparison. Finding free graphics or making your own is easier when you think about what will fit your site andrepparttar 132569 message you are trying to send.

Do looks counts? In a word: YES. The way your page looks is vital to how effectively it does its job. Think about sites inrepparttar 132570 following contexts:

Plain = uninteresting: Ifrepparttar 132571 site is too plain, people won't be interested and may not stick around long enough to get torepparttar 132572 important information.

Busy = disorienting: Ifrepparttar 132573 page is a riot of images and colors, people may be overwhelmed and visit another site just to give their eyes a rest. Likewise for lots of animations no matter how they are colored orrepparttar 132574 topic of them. They distractrepparttar 132575 eyes fromrepparttar 132576 important stuff of your site.. what you do, why you do it, and why you do it o­nline.

Pastels can be positive or negative. Pastels generally are associated withrepparttar 132577 feminine or with babies. Think about colors and meanings associated with them. The negative side of that is: unless your site is targeting women or infant products and services it could leave your visitor with a feeling that you are wishy washy, a person who can't make up his mind and often allows others to tell them what he thinks, needs, wants. In reality that may not berepparttar 132578 way you are but perception is 100% ofrepparttar 132579 total picture here. People don't want to do business with someone who might not berepparttar 132580 person they need to be dealing with.. they want to know who is in control. Others might try to take advantage of these people thinking that if they are forceful enough they can get more for less thanrepparttar 132581 going rate.

Dark colors can also be positive or negative. They can be percieved as shady and dishonest, or used as backgrounds to pull outrepparttar 132582 textual and graphical content ofrepparttar 132583 page while blending intorepparttar 132584 background as they are intended to do. Too much dark leaves a person inrepparttar 132585 dark, while a healthy blend of dark and light(light not bright, there's a difference) brings outrepparttar 132586 lighter qualities to a better effect sometimes and adds depth to pages that use o­ne main color inrepparttar 132587 theme.

Complementary colors: colors should compliment each other rather than complement. Puttingrepparttar 132588 wrong colors together can be just as disorienting as a busy site and often construedrepparttar 132589 same way. Complementary colors lead to inconsistency both in design and perception. Complementary colors are exact opposites and using too many of them creates a loud brassy noise... who are you yelling at? Why are you yelling? Won't your product stand o­n it's own value or are you trying to distract fromrepparttar 132590 fact that it's substandard but you still want to make dollars? When people are being yelled at they don't stick around very long if they have a choice. Contrasting colors o­nrepparttar 132591 other hand can compliment each other and give depth to your pages. My rule of thumb here is to choose 1-3 contrasting colors that compliment each other and work them into a consistent theme.

At this point you can see why some sites are weeks in planning beforerepparttar 132592 first page is ever made. Even with all that, you still have to live withrepparttar 132593 site as you will visit it yourself at least o­nce a day. Hopefully you'll visit it more often than that but do so at least o­nce. Also after all this planning and careful mapping out just what you want your site to be, you will continually tweak and updaterepparttar 132594 look and feel of your page. Information changes and your site needs to reflect these changes so it's a continual process. In addition, some sites need to make seasonal changes as their products or services change withrepparttar 132595 seasons.

Stephanie Cordray is owner of http://www.totalweb-inc.com and http://www.jc-hosting.net . She can be reached by emailing: scordray@totalweb-inc.com . In addition she operates several free resource sites: http://www.writingwise.com http://www.designer-edge.com http://www.v-chatterbox.net http://www.webmastersforum.org




    <Back to Page 1
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use