AS / Autism and Web Design

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Are there other aspies like me who are also web designers / developers here?

A friend of mine send me over this link to a very interesting, blog-type site dealing with web design from an autistic's perspective (the author is autistic herself).

http://www.kevinleitch.co.uk/wp/index.php?p=145

The article linked above deals with how AS people percieve some common elements in web design. Some interesting conclusions are exposed here, for instance, that we prefer solid color backgrounds to patterned ones (um... yeah, might be), our lack of connection with branding / logo messages (what I was doing in an art and design school?), our need for wide open margins around text, and so on.

Even if you are just a "mere" web user, can you identify yourself with what the author exposes here? (not to mention the info here will be useful for an autism/AS-related web project of mine)...

My website ( http://scoogy.com ) is simple and utilitarian, but well organized, with solid white backgrounds (except where Adobe Photoshop created the pages for me)

Yay! Gotta love a site with squirrels!!

I like simple - or at least wide openly organized.

Not to offend the site creators, but know what... that menu at left simply features too many items, that makes my head spin! (Information anxiety anyone?)... How about trying to categorize all those links and group them into 3 or 4 big chunks of data? Let me give a try:

ALL ABOUT ASPERGERS
- FAQ
- Articles
- Books
- Relationships
- Testimonials

WP COMMUNITY
- Forums
- Wireless
- Blogs


and so on, etc, if you get my drift... I'd yank the user stats block and put it somewhere else, like the bottom of the page or something.

I make a living organizing web site structures, you know...

I'm Teaching myself html its fun and I'm making a website for aspies it may not be that good but here you go www.ddcomicland.com im still working on it by the way

I know. It would be nice to have DHTML to expand these subcategories without needing to go to another page. this would be more effective. It might be nice to have a website redesign contest because I think we could have a really slick interface, but that takes a lot of experience, which I don't have. If you could come up with something to improve this, I would really appreciate it.

I like all the things listed on the left. It is easy access for me. I also like that I can instantly see who is on line. The design of this site is pleasant and user friendly.

::nods:: I do freelance web design and programming.


I can deal with lightly textured backgrounds, unlike what the article claims; however, anything beyond that makes it a lot harder for me to read text.

Interestingly, I seem to find it easier to read light text on a dark background than vice versa, but that's probably just me. Usually I use dark text on a light background for the sites I do for others, but my personal site breaks the rules. <grin>

Branding/logos? Hm, don't know about that... I have a consistent 'brand' that runs throughout my personal home page, but it is rather abstract. I don't really get the emotional impact of logos, I guess, but I do find them memorable in a rational sense.

Long lines are rather hard for me to read, but, for that matter, so are extremely short ones. I say somewhere around 80% of the browser width is generally good. And I definitely prefer shorter paragraphs, as you can probably tell from this post.

Oh, and the less animation there is, the better-- unless it's a site that actually deals with animation in and of itself (Homestar Runner, anyone? ) For pages that are mainly textual, I can handle more subtle movements, but the flashy stuff many advertisers seem to prefer is just overloading for me.

I'm getting into freelance Web design, and I can agree with some of the points Kevin Leitch raised.

He noted a preference for a short line length (and not just for autistic people), and I definitely agree. I have a high-resolution laptop, and text going all the way across the screen can more easily cause me to lose my place. Similarly, keeping the paragraphs from becoming exceedingly long helps.

I'm not sure about the wide, white margins around all text. Some margin, of course, is good; but I usually make the margin about the size of maybe a or two.

I don't know about patterned backgrounds. I use them on some of my websites. In fact, my homepage has my name in a fading pattern both horizontally and vertically for the background image. I do know what the author is talking about when he says a pattern can cause a "swim" effect. Striped shirts are notorious for causing a rainbow blur (even thin black and white stripes) for me.

I also don't know about single long pages. I personally prefer a hierarchically designed site so that users can easily navigate to the information they want. I tend to skim a lot when I read, and a well-organized site lends itself to my finding the content I'm most interested in reading.

I'm the Technology Chair for my dorm, and therefore the developer of the website.



I do hate non-solid backgrounds. They make the text hard to read.

Take a look at http://www.ebaumsworld.com/greenwave.html and tell me you aren't swimming...

(Note: Ebaum's World contains some tasteless material not suitable for work or for children. The URL above is safe for work/kids.)

I don't design web pages but I know what bothers me and what is easy for me to stay focused on.

Solid backgrounds as apposed to patterns are great.
Usually dark background, with not too bright test is good.

White backgrounds are horrible. There is way too much glare and it hurts.
I have my computer set so the background is grey instead of white. It has to be very interesting for me not to just close a page with white background. If it is interesting enough for me to read, I will double click on the test to select it and give it the blue background. This is much better, but it turns the test to bright white which is hard too.

Things that move around while I am trying to read are distracting.

Paragraphs that are split keep me focused on reading better.

Short sentences help.

Simple colouring with not too many clashes of colour are good.

Sub catagories as you mentioned help greatly also.

I like the little picture icons on the list to the left. They are a good guide for me.


ElfMan

Hi all

I'm Kevin, author of the blog and article linked to above.

I asked as many autistic people as possible for their input to this and then served up my impressions. I don't think what I wrote has any great authority as I didn't have a large enough participatory base (less than 20 people) but I do think it presents designers with some strategies that may provide beneficial to their autistics users. There are some areas I'd really like to develop further and I have no doubt that some of my conclusions would prove to be incorrect if I'd had more people involved from the start.

I'd really appreciate any further observations any of you may have

Sure I'd like to Alex. Actually this is not a bad site (compared to other AS-related sites, this one is top-of-the-line design-wise!), and I like the colors. It's just that, based on years of experience, you always find room for improvements, and having knowledge on how people use the web certainly helps in spotting the weak points. You don't need DHTML or any other technical gimmicry for that - it's just a matter of categorization and ordering know-how.

As I said, I would like to help with WP in all ways I can. Sadly, work and side projects are currently consuming most of my available time, one of them being a Spanish language, WP-like portal since there is a serious lack of information resources and a hub like this in that language. However I'm open for any questions you may have... see ya

For awhile my major was web design at the community college, but I had a hard time staying focused in class and when I designed a website for my temple, I had a hard time staying with it-updating it all the time, figuring out what was wrong, etc.

I am also a web designer/developer. I have my own business, but unfortunately my business skills are very limited, so I don't get many customers, even though i have the tech skills.

I ran across a very interesting article last week about developing websites for users with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties. Check it out here: http://juicystudio.com/cognitive-impairment.asp

I find it much easier to read things on a light colored solid background, preferably white, w/dark text, preferably black. It also helps when font size is not tiny. I am also a big fan of easy to understand (and easy to find) site navagation.

I really like the way this site is designed and set up. the background colors are not distracting, the navigation is excellent. i work w/many php/mysql cms's, and this is the nicest customized phpnuke site i've ever seen; one of the nicest sites in general too

That's the usual for us in the business. I remember when I freelanced for a while. I really, really loathed the business making part - the hard sell and all that. It was too much for me, specially if you can't take one rejection after another.

What I would suggest is try to form a joint venture with another partner (NTs come in handy for this) that can manage the cold-calling, hard sell part of the business, then set some money agreement between the two, percentages, etc, that can satisfy both parts (you don't want to be screwed, do you?)

And to whoever of the admins who put back underlines on links, my deepest sympathies. It was about time