June 2003: Web Accessibility.
The MANOVERBOARD Telegraph, No. 4.
Welcome again to The Telegraph, the newsletter from MANOVERBOARD, a Web and print design and consulting company based in Brooklyn, New York. MANOVERBOARD creates and develops clear and compelling websites and visual resources for small and large organizations. This month's newsletter includes information on designing websites for the hearing and visually impaired, a new site launch, and favicons.
Design Focus: Small Icons Can Mean Larger Audiences
If you use a Web browser like Internet Explorer for PC, Netscape, Mozilla, or Apple's relatively new Safari, you may have come across those tiny icons to the left of the URL address. They also appear in Windows' Start Menu and favorites' menu. These small images, known as favicons, which is short for "favorite icons," are one of many small ways that companies and organizations are using to help their customers remember them online. In general, they can take the form of miniaturized logos, capital letters, or even tiny photos. While not a groundbreaking development in the world of online design, the favicon is here to stay, helping many customers visually recall your organization. You might notice that MANOVERBOARD finally got around to creating one for itself this month.
Recent Projects: The Silver Word Website
During this rainy month of June, MANOVERBOARD launched the website for The Silver Word, a market research, analysis, and marketing communication company. MANOVERBOARD provided the new company's naming, branding, website, and corporate stationery by working with the company's founder, Ellen Silverman, to craft a customized identity unlike that of any other business research and communications firm. Lots of good fortune and future successes to The Silver Word.
Recommended Books: Designing with Web Standards
This is a tremendously important book that makes the case for Web designers to use agreed-upon standards in their projects. Using Web standards, websites are not only displayed more consistently but, importantly, the visual and hearing impaired can much more easily access a site's content. Designing with Web Standards is a well-written, well-organized, and well-crafted book that explains in plain English (for the most part) why creating websites using standards is critical for the health of the Internet, the well-being of those who who are visually or otherwise impaired, and for the sanity of website developers and managers. His first chapter is titled "99.9% of Websites are Obsolete"; among those mentioned are MSN.com, Adobe.com, and even Yahoo.com. Zeldman, unlike many folks in the industry, is no standards ideologue; rather, his goal throughout the book is to help readers transition to designing and building more sophisticated, legible, and accessible websites and in the process make the WWW a better and easier place to be. Zeldman has a highly regarded website that itself models and upholds Web standards specifications.
To learn more about Web accessibility, visit the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative. On this page is a fine quote by Tim Berners-Lee, one of the inventors of the Web, which sums it all up: "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." MANOVERBOARD is committed to transitioning to Web standards for all of its future website designs.