Re: User Testing of Accessiblity Features

others have written:
> Olivier :
>> you will also have to explain the graphical choises of the website,
>> because a website that uses sharp lines has not the same emotive
>> sense that a website that uses round corners...
>

> Alastair
> I don't believe so. If you wanted to give a sense of the design of the
> site, you would do it once, perhaps something hidden on the homepage.


As a visual designer, if I choose to give a web page round corners  
and bright colors to convey a sense of friendliness and youth, I  
think it's part of the important communication on the page. Even  
colleagues who don't value visual design will be somewhat influenced  
by a competent  designer's choices. If those colors and corners are  
described in text anywhere on the page, the fact of their existence  
is communicated but the purpose of their existence isn't conveyed.  
And that purpose is what folks like me are sought after and paid for.

So help me. What would it take for a communicator to convey a sense  
of (at least in this imaginary instance) friendliness and youth to  
someone with limited or no vision? Surely time wasting bits of  
descriptive text may have the opposite effect. Friendliness would be  
implied by usability, I would think. So as a visual designer, how can  
I ply my craft effectively to someone who can't, and perhaps never  
could, see? What sort of additional layers of not verbal information  
can I use?







________________________________________
David Stong
Multimedia Specialist, Graphic Designer

Penn State shouldn't pay for a designer's artistic indulgences;  
design things that work.

Education Technology Services, a small unit within
Information Technology Services, at
The Pennsylvania State University
212  Rider Building II
State College, PA   16801-4819