Online Marketing News - Accessibility

No matter how successful an e-commerce site is, there are often ways in which a site can be improved to maintain its appeal to customers and maximise conversions.

We have looked at M&S, Amazon and Tesco already, now we take a look at Next to see what improvements could be made to their website...

A new study has been critical of the quality and accessibility of UK government websites.

The report (pdf), by the Public Accounts Committee, finds that the public sector has some work to do on the usability of its websites - which it says have barely improved since 2001.

Chris Shimojima was brought in to steer the online business of Nike in 2006 – a position in which he oversees the direct-to-consumer digital sales of Nike and its sister brands, such as Converse and Hurley.

He recently spoke at ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst event about how the company was generating business online through its Nike+ community and Nike iD, its system that allows shoppers to create customised trainers online and in store.

After his speech, we asked Chris a few questions about Nike’s e-commerce strategy, internal structure and future social media plans. And why its website is 100% Flash.

The number of people using the web is increasing every day, but the adoption rate of RSS as a technology is still way down at 5%.

Recent reported accessibility problems with American Express' web statements exemplify a common challenge for financial service websites and those reliant on PDFs.

Chris Dawson is the co-founder of eBay-related blog TameBay and a consultant on how to sell via online marketplaces.

We asked him a few things about how eBay is developing as an e-commerce channel for businesses in the UK.

A number of well known UK brands have been penalised recently by Google for boosting their rankings through paid links and reviews.

This happened to Moneysupermarket.com last year, more recently to Gocompare, and just last week Kwik-Fit's car insurance offering was relegated from page 2 to the relative obscurity of page 5 of the search engine.

Using print advertising to drive traffic to online properties is a great example of integrated marketing.

Except when the consumers can't access the site.

Commentators have been predicting the explosion of the mobile web for years now, but a couple of factors suggest that this year they may be right.

Bruce Tognazzini was Apple's 66th employee, developing the company's first usability guidelines and founding its Human Interface team.

Almost thirty years later, he's a principal at Nielsen Norman Group and still making his feelings known when companies commit design errors.

Here, 'Tog' gives us a variety of thoughts on interface design, freedom, the future of computing, the iPhone's place in world history and why he travels around in a 400 sq ft motorhome while towing a 4x4 and two Segways.

Webcredible’s Mrudula Kodali has published some handy tips for using photography in e-commerce – an issue etailers are increasingly grappling with as competition increases and search engines display more multimedia results.

Mrudula says photos can help consumers get a better feel of products on offer, but have to "work hard" to overcome the web's limitations.

See a brief run-through of her suggestions after the jump:

E-consultancy has just published a User Experience Roundtable Briefing based on a lively discussion which took place in London last month.

Are you catering for the thousands of people in the UK whose first language isn't English? If not, you might be missing a trick.

Here, we speak to E.ON UK new media manager Paul Squires about its multi-lingual content strategy and the potential boost it can give to customer service and sales.

RIAs like Ajax often have an accessibility weak spot since they need to work with JavaScript off to meet the basic accessibility guidelines.

Rumour has it that the next version of the popular screen reader Jaws may be able to handle Ajax interfaces. 

As part of our recent usability research, we asked respondents to name their favourite gurus in the field of user experience, with the aim of producing a Hall of Fame.

After the high profile that accessibility was given 18 months ago following the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act, have things really changed?

The London 2012 Olympics effort has attracted international ridicule after it was forced to remove an animated version of its controversial new logo because it was causing epileptic seizures.

The dayglo, nu rave-style jigsaw images have drawn derision - and several attempts to do better - since their unveiling on Monday. But the online animation fuelled the matter further after Epilepsy Action requested its removal following complaints from sufferers.

I took advantage of bigmouthmedia's recent recruitment reception to survey 107 graduates.

Lots of them thought their universities did enough to highlight the importance of the internet, but an equal number strongly disagreed.

There has been much discussion and comment recently about the quality of online customer experiences. Even small companies, run by specialists in their chosen field, need to provide a good online experience if they are to capture a share of the rapidly growing online spend. 

Here’s my novice's guide to improving the quality of your online experience...