brockett

The emphasis on accessibility in the two readings was interesting, since I’d never considered it before today. Interestingly, it just came up this afternoon…someone was complaining that census.gov hasn’t put the manuscript census online yet because they can’t figure out how to make it accessible to the blind which, by law, all federal sites have to do. I didn’t realize there were already so many ways to make the internet accessible (braille readers, etc). Good to know.

As historians, it’s great to get some pointers on layout, and it’s true, it would be beneficial to look at it as an artistic form of graphic design. I especially like the idea that the layout itself can encourage the viewer to think a certain way (association), or to move their eyes in the order you want them to (through a pattern). I wonder if our generation is used to thinking this way already?

And the final lesson of the week: subtlety is always better. Nothing says amateur like lime green font on a bright red background. I appreciated the suggestions for using neutral background colors to compliment text layout.  Something I’ll definitely keep in mind for my project…

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