United Way Usability Study or Wudya' Think About this Screenshot?

preface:
I'm doing some volunteer work for United Way in Austin. Basically I'm trying to assess their homepage and increase its usability, and I can’t alter the main navigation or the site brand.

imagine:
The screenshot is of a 3 column layout where the main column will be liquid and the side columns will be a fixed pixel size. Oh, and you have to imagine that blue text links will be underlined on the final site.

The Original Site
The Prototype Screenshot

What do you guys think? It’s still in prototype screenshot phase so don’t be a afraid to tear it down. I’m most interested in increasing usability but visual appeal is also important.

How could the homepage be improved?

Some things I noticed on the live site but can't test on an image.

Clean up the alt attributes and headings…this looks like crapola in Lynx.

The nav-bar across the top needs an onfocus event handler to duplicate the onmouseover. There is no visual indicator for gaining focus by tabbing.

Give the onfocus, or a:focus more contrast than it has now.

There are no headings <hn> to give structure. Assistive devices depend on structure defined by headings to navigate around the page. eg.I won't even mention the improved structure afforded by losing the tables, now will I?

cheers,

gary

Thanks gary!
That was very helpful. I'll make a note of everything you said so it can be addressed on the implantation of the redesign.

I should mention that Joe Clark's "Building Accessible Websites" is available online. It's an easy read and very helpful.

cheers,

gary

Great link! Thanks!

Any input on the screen shot? Does it appear usable. Would a person "get" the purpose and understand how to use the new site better than the original site?

Moving the bottom stuff over to the left, and doing something with the rainbow links is very positive. I didn't know those color blocks at the top were links until I went hunting for my focus while tabbing through the links.

cheers,

gary