Design Desk: 01 - Remember The Human User

In this day and age of increased internet savy there is a continually growing push towards global accessibility and search engine optimization for web sites. Browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, Opera, etc), platforms and operating systems (Mac OS, Windows, etc), Plug-Ins (Flash, Quicktime, Real, WMV, etc) - all of these technical specifics can shape and determine how a user accesses the web, as well as how on-line information and services are displayed. As more organizations follow W3C standards for accessibility and usability and concurrently push for search engine optimization (so as to be better found and ranked in search engines) it's important that the overall experience not be forgotten. Anyone can create a white web page with plain black text and hyper-blue links. This web site would be perfectly accessible across platforms, browsers, screen readers and printers, and it would be very easily accessed by search engine crawlers. The question of experience, however, needs attention and is increasingly being pushed aside. If, for example, the goal is to create an on-line museum exhibit, then although it's important for screen readers to be able to access the web site, and for search engines to be able to index the web site, it is also equally important to create some kind of deeper experience ("museum exhibit" - like) for the majority of the users that will visit this web site.

Designing for search engines and accessibility doesn't have to mean forsaking all sense of style and design. (see previous entry The CSS Solution, for example). While SEO (Search Engine Optimization) might suggest greater use of plain text, less images, or rich media, a rich and punchy user experience might contradictorily call for more rich media, alternative navigation schemes, etc.

I would suggest that accessibility and SEO rules are not absolute but should be taken in balance with consideration given to the experience you want your users to have. Informed decisions can then be made in support or in contrast to suggested rules and guidelines for specific purposes. As we strive to have our web sites be optimized for search engines, and be fully accessible to the various technical specifications of users, it is also important not to forget the quality and richness of the human user experience that we want to provide.

Tagging the internet with del.icio.us

Here is an excellent article that introduces delicious, a social tagging and online bookmarking application. The real power of delicious, as explained by the author, is that you can find sites based upon tagging done by others. The idea behind community tagging is that Web sites will be more effectively searchable as they will be indexed by interested individuals. What does this mean for the cultural community? It means that we can effectively index our own corner of the internet. It means that we can identify resources that we feel deserve the attention of our community rather than leaving it to traditional search engines, which rely upon robots rather than people to index. As delicious grows in popularity (and it is already huge), the ability to index online resources of interest to our community will be firmly in our hands.