Mouse Free Zone

Ok, so you have, one way or the other, modified your browser. Now what do you do? If you think that you have gotten off lightly, think again! I want you to abandon your mouse. Yup. Plug it out. Throw it away to be dramatic and have that sense of no going back—if you like—but whatever you do don't reach for it while you are in 'No Frills' mode.

Soon you will have a taste of what the Web is really like for many users, like those who rely on the keyboard alone to navigate online. This will hopefully also hammer home how important it is for the Web interfaces that you design to be keyboard accessible.

The Acid Test

In order for the test to work, it is important that you pick a few tasks to do with each of the sites that you visit. There are no hard and fast rules about how many sites you choose to visit. In fact one site that you are used to and can perform a real world task such as buying something, writing a blog post, or adding some kind of rich media content to, are all representative...