Note: This information is from a project in 2005.

WAI Web Site Redesign Project

Page Contents

Project Introduction
Status
Commenting on WAI Site Design
Redesign Documentation
Acknowledgements
Contact
Related Pages
Photos

Project Introduction

The WAI Site Task Force of EOWG (WSTF) is redesigning the WAI Web site following a user-centered design process (UCD). The primary goals of the redesign are to provide:

increased usability of the WAI Web site, demonstrated by usability testing, and
increased use of the resources on the WAI Web site due to better usability.

Note: The WAI site redesign project is not related to development of accessibility guidelines. The redesign is an education and outreach project to increase the usability of the WAI site itself - that is, to make it easier for everyone to use the site to find information about Web accessibility.

Status

WSTF has completed: evaluation of the current site, including a heuristic evaluation and a formal usability test in cooperation with American Institutes for Research (AIR); UCD analysis phase; UCD design phase; and iterative evaluation, including many informal usability tests and a second formal usability test in cooperation AIR.

WAI released notice of a public prototype under development in June 2005, and released the first phase of the new design on 22 July 2005.

The redesign is based on extensive analysis, design, and evaluation. Much of it is complete, such as the information architecture (that is, the grouping and labeling of pages in the Site Map). However, some of it is still being refined, for example open issues under development include:

font face and font sizing
WAI logo redesign
style sheet open issues and cleanup
and others listed in WAI Site Redesign Open Issues

WAI also has several Web site enhancements in the work queue. We appreciate your patience as we continue to develop the site.

Commenting on WAI Site Design

Comments on the WAI site design can be sent to:

team-site-design@w3.org - for WAI staff
wai-site-comments@w3.org - for broken links, errors, and other items the redesign team's issue list (email can be seen by the public)
w3c-wai-ig@w3.org - for public discussion (to join, see WAI IG Mailing List)

WSTF is currently working on addressing remaining open issues and developing additional features. Responding to all comments directly could take considerable time away from continued site development; therefore, we will not be able to respond to most comments.

Even though we may not respond to your comments, please be assured that we will take all comments into consideration for subsequent updates.

Redesign Documentation

The WSTF is providing redesign process documentation online. Documents from the current site evaluation and from the UCD analysis phase are listed below. Additional documents will be listed on this page as they are completed.

Acknowledgements

WSTF participants active thoughout most of the project:

Andrew Arch, Vision Australia Foundation
Charmane Corcoran, Michigan State University
Shawn Lawton Henry, W3C WAI, MIT - facilitator
Michael Lenz, Cisco Systems, Inc
Matt May, W3C WAI, MIT
Blossom Michaeloff, Wells Fargo
Carol Smith, Kognitive
Justin Thorp, Michigan State University

Additional contributors:

WAI Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) participants
W3C Team, including Bert Bos (CSS), Olivier Thereaux (CSS and image tweaking), and Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (navigation generation and various troubleshooting)
Jon Dodd, Bunnyfoot Universality - UCD analysis
Michael Duffy, DUFFCO - logo and icon design
Chris Hass and American Institutes for Research (AIR) project team - formal usability testing
Early design comps provided by:
- Jürgen Altziebler
- Jina Bolton - and early CSS
- Jan Erik
- Lauren Gray, fluid creations
- Austin Govella, Grafofini
- Olivia Neubohn and designers at NYKRIS
- Ruben Rohde
- Vineet Thapar, Jaape Collaborative - and logo designs
(If we missed listing your contributions, please accept apologies and send e-mail to shawn@w3.org and cc:team-site-design@w3.org)