Using different types of positioning

I have set up this post as an example of what might be done for Activity 501.

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By setting one box within another and giving the inner boxes relative coordinates with respect to the outer box allows such things as headers to be displaced from the content.

As relative positioning is being used in the inner boxes then the outer reference box can be moved to another part of the screen and the positioning will still work.

You can see the HTML by loading the example using the link above and using view source in your browser.

The CSS can be seen by linking to it on the wiki.

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Notice that I have put additional explanations in the page itself, and as comments in the HTML and CSS codes. You can do this or put more explanation here.

Finding out about usability

This is an example of the first activity for session 04.

The web site I have chosen is Usability First

They say:

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What is usability?

Usability usually refers to software but is relevant to any product. Some ways to improve usability include:

• shortening the time to accomplish tasks,
• reducing the number of mistakes made,
• reducing learning time,
• and improving people’s satisfaction with a system.

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On the whole I think that these comments are much too general and need to make reference to particular aspects of usability such as navigation. Also they make no reference to an important aspect of usability which is about allowing the user to locate themselves within the site. All of these statements seem to be generally about speeding up the use of the site without taking account of these other qualitative factors. It is no use being able to find your way easily from the top page if you find yourself somewhere down in the site and don’t know where you are and how you get out.Also the web site is supposed to be about web site usability and the examples given are generally about software usability. It would help if at least some of them were more specific to a web site.

As an aside, not sure if it relates directly to usability but I find their jobs box really irritating.