Introduction – Usability and Accessibility

During the Scavenger Hunt Assignment, we learned the importance of Accessibility. When we tried to find specific items on the Hood College web page, some complications arose that made finding the information more difficult. For Example, JavaScript code does not work in a text browser, such as Lynx, so the Hood College ‘Quicklinks’ did not work. Also since Hood College’s ‘Blackboard’ system uses JavaScript to validate user login information, it is not even possible to login to this system.

With this now know, and knowing that Server-Side programming does work in test browsers (As seen through the search program on the Amazon.com web site.), we know that if programming can be done with server side (such as the blackboard login), it should be done in server-side languages, rather than client-side.

The second part of the assignment showed us Usability issues. The one that sticks out the most was trying to find the weather forecast on the San Francisco web site. The site was so cluttered with unnecessary stuff that finding something as simple as the weather became very difficult.

Usability and Accessibility are important for a webpage, and this assignment helped to track that.