We have tried to enforce standards, but people always say they need it quickly and expect us to post the PDF.” They want it to be pretty, but we want it to be useful.
#UI BROWSER SCREEN READER PDF#
“Someone usually hands us a PDF and says, ‘Here, put this online.’ We have a style guide and try to help our peers understand that we need to pick the layout for the content before it goes on the intranet. Why not spend that time on an accessible HTML page, that’s properly written, and formatted for the web? For example, when we asked an intranet-team lead about her team’s content-management processes, she said, However, you still have to plan, write, and design the content you’ll put in the PDF. PDFs are still commonly used because people incorrectly assume that posting a PDF online is faster and easier than creating a webpage, so that’s all that ever gets done.
Many organizations and individuals now place a heightened emphasis on sustainability, and, therefore, think twice before printing off a lengthy document that could and should otherwise be formatted and structured for online consumption. PDFs’ usefulness as a vehicle for print is also diminishing due to environmental concerns. Some users will take advantage of these shortcuts, but others won’t. The use of Command or Control + F to find something within a PDF is not familiar to all users. Clickable tables of contents are often introduced in PDFs as pseudo navigation, but users still slow down and have trouble finding what they need. The inability to navigate takes a toll on users as finding information becomes challenging and time consuming. They lack navigation and other interface elements that help users maintain context and move through digital content with speed and ease. PDFs also use lots of heavy, dense text and elaborate graphics which increase their file size and, subsequently, the time they take to download. Content is split up across sheets of paper, which is fine for printed documents, but causes severe usability problems online. Users can’t scan and scroll around in a PDF like on a web page. We often see users get lost in PDFs because the print-oriented view provides only a small glimpse of the content.
#UI BROWSER SCREEN READER WINDOWS#
They’re optimized for paper sizes, not browser windows or modern device viewports. PDFs are meant for distributing documents that users will print. After 20 years of watching users perform similar tasks on a variety of sites that use either PDFs or regular web pages, one thing remains certain: PDFs degrade the user experience. No matter how tempting it is, you should never use a PDF to display content that users need to read online.
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