I’m fond of reading. Reading is important in my work as a researcher and as leisure time entertainment. However it is not always easy to find the good books, even with help from a librarian or typical Internet based search systems. I was therefore very excited when I was asked to work with a Norwegian version of Whichbook. www.whichbook.net provides readers with an enjoyable and intuitive way of finding books to match their mood. Try this service if you haven’t already used it!

Universal design

Book readers have different assumptions
and needs. One of my characteristics
is that I’m blind. I’m using a
Braille display and synthetic speech,
not a standard computer screen. Other
persons are using different assistive
devices, mobile phones, keyboards
instead of mouse PDAs.

“The Web is designed, in turn, to be
universal: to include anything and
anyone.” (Tim Berners-Lee).When
designing a new web system it is important
to allow for different input and
output. This is not very difficult. It is
however not just a triviality for the
result to be an intuitive and easy to use
service.

My role in the Whichbook project has
been to provide as good accessibility as
possible. I manage a team of experts,
and we’re able to give the developers
good advice. Our knowledge is based
on international standards/guidelines
(e.g. www.w3.org/wai), but the most
important method in our approach is
user testing. Technical guidelines are
not enough when designing user interfaces
for human beings!

Two interfaces for similar data

whichbook.net is originally designed in
Flash. The search interface consists of
several sliders. This is a very successful
solution for the screen and mouse user,
but not however very accessible, e. g.
for blind persons. It is possible to develop
fairly accessible Flash, but HTML
is preferable when designing for all. An
HTML alternative has been available
for years in the English system, and our
goal was to improve this version.

Normally I do not recommend two
versions of a web. In this case however
the existing interface was very successful
for a lot of users and the only part
of the system which had to be different
was the search interface. The results
(books, audio books and filmed books)
are similar. The danger of having two
versions is obvious:When updating
one of them, the other is forgotten.

What has been important
in the accessible version?

When focusing on accessibility very
small adjustments normally make a lot
of difference. These adjustments do not
often change the visual presentation.
Some typical examples are: alternative
text to images, labels in forms (used to
allow screen readers to announce fields
correctly), the element order in the
HTML code and extra table mark-ups.

Our work is also to figure out appropriate
navigation, structure, colour/
contrast, tab order, button sizes etc. to
make the system usable by persons
with disabilities.We only have one
experience from all of the projects we
have been working on. These changes
benefit everybody! Clear and intuitive
structure and navigation are preferable
for the computer expert, the blind researcher,
retired people – everyone!
The difference is that some users are
able to use even badly designed software
and web pages.

When it is possible: use standards! In
this system I believe that the standard
forms with appropriate labelling, clear
language and standard controls are a
key factors for success! People do not
have to learn new techniques.What is
new in this system is the ingenious
search approach, not striking technology.

The Norwegian version – www.
onskebok.no – will be launched on
September 26. User tests and our expert
evaluations are more than promising,
and I’ll probably be one of the
most active ‘ønskebok’ users myself!

Morten Tollefsen
researcher, MediaLT

morten@medialt.no