Content is king may be a cliche but nonetheless the content of a web site, and how it is presented is a critical part of accessibility, but sometimes forgotten in the “gee whiz” technology focus. After all we are talking about a communication medium.
If you have ever been confronted with some useless flash image when you arrive at a web site that tells you nothing about where you are, or what you should do next then you will know what I mean.
Recently I tried visiting some fashion sites. Nice pictures but short on information to the point where one had no contact details! I really wonder why they bothered. Even with broadband most of the sites I tried to visit took ages to load. The text, such as it was wouldn’t enlarge either. (Couldn’t possibly spoil the look, darling!)
Then there was one which had only a squitchy image and a progress bar creeping along. This is the twenty first century! Why would anyone want to waste their time sitting and watching that? I simply gave up. Their loss.
Rant over. I do understand that not everyone is a word person like me, but at least some meaningful content would be good.
The opposite of course is just as bad. Tons of turgid verbiage which is also a pain in the neck. People don’t read information on web sites in the same way as they read a printed page. They will not read as much text on a web page as on a printed page. I sometimes have to resort to cutting and pasting into Word and then printing off long and dense documents, which isn’t good for the planet, and is more costly to me. Of course I only print off the things I am really highly motivated to read. I have to leave the rest.
Accessibility is not just about resizing, use of colour, alt text for images, skip links, proper data tables and all that important stuff, nor is it about reducing everything to boring plain text with no visual clues. It is also about having properly marked-up headings, straightforward writing, short sentences and paragraphs that engage the reader. It is not about dumbing down important information. It is about writing clearly and concisely in a way which will engage the reader.
While web content must be considered in terms of structure and organisation, attention must also be paid to quality, usefulness, ease of understanding and accessibility of the information it contains.
Having been a journalist, writer and broadcaster I must say I am a real fan of good old plain English Everyone benefits.
I also thoroughly recommend Rachel McAlpine’s new book Better Business Writing on the Web.
