Publications

Short articles

  • Accessibility evaluation practices - survey results
    This is a summary of the results of an online survey on accessibility evaluation practices conducted in late 2004. Web accessibility practitioners were invited to participate in the survey via a posting to several key mailing lists. There were 98 respondents, with the majority from the IT&T and education sectors whose roles involve less than 50% accessibility-related work. Manual inspection was the most popular evaluation method used, and user testing the least popular. Most evaluations were based on the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

  • Don't "click here": writing meaningful link text
    Link text must be written with care. To be usable, accessible and to help with search engine indexing, link text must clearly identify the target of the link. "Click here" does not give any indication of the content on the linked page.

  • How will the new Disability Standards for Education affect what universities do on the web?
    On August 18, 2005 new Disability Standards for Education came into effect in Australia. Questions have been raised about they may impact on the way we publish resources on the web. In this article, I provide an overview of the new Standards, their general impact, and conclude that if organisations are already following the advice of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (on how to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 in relation to the web), the introduction of the Standards should make no appreciable difference.

  • Opening new windows: a user-centred approach
    Opening new browser windows can confuse or annoy users, so designers should take care when considering this approach. New windows should only be opened when doing so supports users' tasks. And users should always be given a clear warning about what will happen when they click on a link that triggers a pop-up or opens a new window.

  • Ten tips for top web content
    Tips for writing effective, high quality web content are discussed. The focus is on writing content that communicates clearly, is useful and usable to its intended audience and is published with the aim of meeting specific business goals.

  • Usable file and directory names make usable URLs
    Thoughtful and consistent naming of web files and directories can improve usability and site maintenance.

  • Writing usable titles for web pages
    To write usable page titles, we need to consider the ways in which titles are used. This article discusses some common mistakes and provides a list of guidelines for writing better page titles.

Conference papers

  • University website accessibility revisited
    (Co-authored with Scott Rippon and accepted for Ausweb07)
    A 2003 accessibility audit of Australian university websites found that 98 per cent failed to meet the most basic requirements for web accessibility. Four pages from each site were evaluated for conformance with Level-A of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, an international standard for web accessibility. Only one university's set of four pages met these standards. This paper presents the findings from a second audit completed in early 2007. Using a similar methodology we aimed to see if there had been any improvement in university website accessibility. We found that overall, accessibility has slightly worsened. 100 per cent of sites and 92 per cent of pages failed to meet the basic standards. The biggest problem is still the failure to provide equivalent text alternatives for content presented in non-text formats. This is a relatively easy issue to resolve, but has proved intractable.

  • Creating a keyword search vocabulary for Course Finder
    (Co-authored with Guy Sangwine and Scott Rippon and accepted for Ausweb06)
    This paper describes the creation of a keyword search vocabulary for Course Finder, Monash University's web-based course catalogue. It describes the approach that was taken, the basic structure of the vocabulary, and lessons learned during the design process.

  • Usabillity versus accessibility: best friends or worst enemies? (PDF, 53kb)
    (Invited paper for VALA 2006)
    Some people think usability and accessibility are conflicting design approaches. This paper examines the relationship between the two design fields by comparing and contrasting definitions of each along with the techniques and methods used by their practitioners. The paper defends the view that usability and accessibility are complementary design philosophies and recommends that practitioners in each field embrace the methods and techniques of the other.

  • How usable are university websites? A report on the prospective student experience
    (Accepted for AusWeb05. Winner of the best paper award)
    This paper reports on a study of prospective student experiences of university websites. Thirty-nine participants took part in a usability study which examined 15 university websites (13 Australian sites, one site in the United States and one in the United Kingdom). The participants--all prospective students--were asked to find a course they were interested in taking, the cost and entry requirements for the course, where the course was taught from and whether there were any scholarships they would be eligible to apply for. Only 62 percent of tasks were completed successfully. Participants had the most difficulty trying to find information about tuition fees and scholarships. The study highlighted five key usability problems that contributed to these results: poor information architecture, poor content, poor search results and/or search interface, a reliance on domain knowledge about the higher education sector that many prospective students do not have and negative reactions to or difficulty using PDF documents.

  • Using paper prototyping as a user-centred method of informing design decisions: a case study
    (Accepted for AusWeb04)
    Paper prototyping is a method for designing, evaluating and improving user interfaces. This paper reports on a paper prototyping exercise that was used primarily to involve end users in the decision between two design approaches to the user interface for a web-based searchable university course database.

  • How accessible are Australian university web sites?
    (Accepted for AusWeb 03)
    A selection of key pages from all 45 Australian tertiary education web sites were analysed to assess their compliance with basic accessibility standards, as required by Australian anti-discrimination legislation. The results--98 percent of sites failed to comply--suggest that a radical rethink is required.

  • Testing web page design concepts for usability
    (Co-authored with Derek Brown and accepted for Ausweb03)
    We tested five visual design concepts by "greeking" all text elements on each of the designs so users had to rely on the communicative aspects of each design in order to attempt a set of identification tasks.

  • Redesign of the Monash University web site: a case study in user-centred design methods
    (Accepted for AusWeb 03)
    This paper presents a case study of a user-centred design approach to the redesign of a large university web site.

  • An accessibility audit of WebCT
    (Accepted for AusWeb 02)
    This paper provides an accessibility audit of WebCT. It identifies a range of accessibility problems and suggests strategies to ensure that universities who have purchased this product understand and are able to meet their legal obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

  • Designing for improved usability: the my.monash portal
    (Accepted for AusWeb 01)
    my.monash     is a web portal providing members of the Monash University community with a personalised gateway to Web-based resources and information. This short paper documents the results of a usability evaluation of the portal's customisation interface and show how the application of usability design principles to the redesign of the interface achieves significant usability improvements.

Published articles and books

  • Testing web page design concepts for usability
    (Ariadne 40, July 2004)
    We tested five visual design concepts by "greeking" all text elements on each of the designs so users had to rely on the communicative aspects of each design in order to attempt a set of identification tasks.

  • How accessible are Australian university web sites?
    (Ariadne 38, January 2004)
    A 2003 study of the accessibility of Australian university web sites showed 98% of sites failed to meet the basic requirements for web accessibility.

  • Case study: migrating down under
    (CM Focus, 2003)
    In this article, I explain the importance of preparing content for migration into a content management system, so you can maximise return on investment.

  • Philosophy in Cyberspace
    (1st edition, 1995; 2nd edition, 1998)
    An extensive guide to online resources for academic philosophers and students published by the Philosophy Documentation Center.