Re: text menus vs graphical menus

You make some excellent points on this issue, Michael.

I think in general we're saying similar things.  Graphics and visual
symbols are very important for many people.  There are those, however,
who benefit from the addition of textual information and links, so a
thoughtful combination of graphics and text should ensure that all needs
are catered for.

As for the shortfalls in design excellence displayed by some sites, I
suspect that's largely an experience issue, and as more and more
designers develop techniques and expertise in creating good,
well-designed accessible and standards compliant sites, other designers
will pick up on these techniques, and use them, and we'll see a growing
improvement in the standard.  Many of us learn how to design sites by
looking at what others do, so until there are a lot of examples of good
accessible designs for others to work with and learn from, those of us
who are technically competent but lack innovative design skills will
have little to learn from.  That will come eventually, I think.  I
certainly hope so! :-)

Regards,
Donna
--
Donna Smillie
Best Practice Officer (Accessible Websites)
Royal National Institute of the Blind (UK)


----- Original Message -----
From: Michael McKee <mikemckee(at)cablespeed.com>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: text menus vs graphical menus


> > Only for those hung up on how "cool" their pages look.  As far as
> > "professional" goes, a blind CEO isn't going to think much of the
> > "professionalism" of the web designer who creates sites that he or
she
> > hears as "image image image link-image link-image image image"!
>
> All of your points are excellent. Unfortunately, the other side of the
> coin comes into play with the sighted. I just finished reading a study
> that surveyed consumer confidence in web sites. Visual appeal was one
> of the three main criteria people use in assessing the quality of
> service providers. The other are logical, consistent navigation and
> clearly defined company policies. Although "designers" make unskillful
> use of graphics so do "developers" make ugly text navigation menus.

[much good discussion of this issue snipped for brevity in reply]

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