Fundamentals

The Digital Design + Development website’s cognitive load is doing great. It is grouping and chunking where needed, the hierarchy is visible and easy to understand, the user can jump around the information and not get lost (great use of anchors), it uses a grid to increase predictability but breaks consistency where needed, and there’s no cross-referencing needed. The language usage is appropriate and easy to understand.

The colors implemented are sometimes used as a distinguishing factor like in the diplomas section, but it is not the only identifying factor on the website and it breaks consistency with the rest of the page so I believe it is okay in this particular scenario. Lastly, the typography choices are clean, legible, and not overwhelming.

Score: 4/5

It is responsive in multiple browsers and it also adapts to a mobile version, which is great in terms of responsiveness and being robust. Regarding the perceivable factor, there are 2 images on the site (picture with Liam and Rajneet and the map) that don’t have a text alternative; all images need to have a text alt.

The website is mostly operable, except for some parts that are inaccessible through the keyboard only. Rather than “inaccessible”, there are some buttons that aren’t actually buttons on the site and they are just boxes that are animated to get a bit bigger once they are hovered on so I think this should be fixed because it can be misleading when the mouse changes from a normal pointer to the hand pointer when hovering the diplomas or programs.

Due to the clean appearance, hierarchy, and language used in the site, it qualifies as understandable.

Accessibility Challenges: Moderate.

Though some pictures are missing alt text I don’t believe they were crucial to convey information and therefore they won’t stop people from being able to use the website. Given that the 3 buttons on the site all lead to the same contact form and it is accessible through the keyboard I believe it won’t cause problems for people with disabilities when they are on the site.

The frustrating bit comes in when you hover over the programs or diplomas on the site and it seems as if you can click on them but they actually don’t trigger anything. This doesn’t affect accessibility but it is a bit confusing for the users when they are navigating the site.