Chapter 5: Website Usability – Eliciting the Issues

This chapter examines evidence from three studies undertaken by the writer. Their collective aims were to:

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the studies were carried out using the accessible Website ‘Newham Easy Read’. This site was not only created to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities, but written with and by them. Text was kept to a minimum and accompanied by an equivalent audio rendition. Images were also liberally used. Each contents entry (or ‘menu item’) listed on the left linked to a submenu of pages made by one of a number of groups with whom the resource was created. Accessing one of the submenu page links led to an information page of three or four short sentences accompanied by photographs. For example, one of the main sections was money, under the submenu for which appears an entry ‘Use a cash machine safely’. The information page offered simple instructions and advice (‘Always try and use cash machine in daylight’) and included photos of the page creators demonstrating the use of one such machine.