Book Image

UX for the Web

By : Marli Ritter, Cara Winterbottom
Book Image

UX for the Web

By: Marli Ritter, Cara Winterbottom

Overview of this book

If you want to create web apps that are not only beautiful to look at, but also easy to use and fully accessible to everyone, including people with special needs, this book will provide you with the basic building blocks to achieve just that. The book starts with the basics of UX, the relationship between Human-Centered Design (HCD), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and the User-Centered Design (UCD) Process; it gradually takes you through the best practices to create a web app that stands out from your competitors. You’ll also learn how to create an emotional connection with the user to increase user interaction and client retention by different means of communication channels. We’ll guide you through the steps in developing an effective UX strategy through user research and persona creation and how to bring that UX strategy to life with beautiful, yet functional designs that cater for complex features with micro interactions. Practical UX methodologies such as creating a solid Information Architecture (IA), wireframes, and prototypes will be discussed in detail. We’ll also show you how to test your designs with representative users, and ensure that they are usable on different devices, browsers and assistive technologies. Lastly, we’ll focus on making your web app fully accessible from a development and design perspective by taking you through the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

An overview of the WCAG 2.0


Keep in mind that WCAG 2.0 is not an introduction to accessibility, but a reputable technical standard guideline created by the W3C to make web content more accessible to all people, especially to people who have to use assistive technology to access websites. The WCAG consists of twelve guidelines that are divided into four principles, namely Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. Each of the four principles are measured against three levels--A, AA and AAA--of which A represents the lowest compliance to the web accessibility standard and AAA the highest.

Perceivable

The first principle from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Perceivable, focuses on making content available and recognizable for all users, despite the user’s way of perceiving information or the tools they use to access this information; for example, screen readers. In short, content can’t be invisible to all of the user's senses. Here's an excerpt from WCAG 2.0:

"All web content...