A new client of mine recently created their first site. It’s about AIDS Drugs. The site has a few issues that still need to be corrected, but one thing I liked seeing, especially being done by a new webmasters, is that he is already taking usability into consideration. He added the adjustable font script. You can test it in action on his site, but basically it’s just the three little icons seen like in this example:

This is a screenshot taken from the AIDS site which is located in the top left. I admittedly don’t offer it on my site, but I believe my font is large enough, and it is still adjustable using the browser. For those of you still formatting your text in pixels, please stop. IE will not adjust font size when asked if you site is designed that way. The forty and over population will be grateful.

In this case text size was made adjustable using a javascript, but there is another way. Sitepoint has a great example on how to build a simple style switcher. Using a style switcher you can avoid making the user download more script, and you can do more than just change the font size. In one simple click the user could change the whole layout, color, and everything.

Another great thing he did was include the print this article button for all of his content. This site, though still in its beginings could be a great resource. He has a very large HIV medication list, and there are lenghty descriptions for all. These will no doubtillay be printed out. The print this article icon makes printing easy for a user when they just want to print the content, and not all of the menu or sidebar items.

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