[access-uk] Re: The Inaccessible Herts Society for the Blind Web Site
- From: "Tink Watson" <tink@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 14:06:35 -0000
Ray,
The problem of companies claiming they can build accessibile web sites
is an increasingly big one. The problem has several aspects.
Some companies have built an accessible web site of perhaps a couple of
hundred pages and found the process to be quite easy, which indeed it is
once you know what you're up to. They then take a contract to build a site
with thousands of pages and find that the process is considerably different
and more complicated. They are then woefully unable to deliver on their
promises.
Some companies simply lie about such things and claim to be able to
accomplish something they have never attempted before. This results in a
worse case than the previous example and if anything more heinous.
Another aspect is that the people commissioning the site have no way of
ascertaining whether the company they are taking on can do what they claim.
They are hiring in people to be accessibility experts, not because they
already have that expertise in house.
The long and the short of it is that there is no way for a company to
prove their worth and no way for a purchaser to be assured that they are
buying in capable talent. Which is why I'm chairing a group of people called
the Usability & Accessibility Working Group (UA-WG).
http://www.ua-wg.org
We're developing an accreditation scheme that will enable web site
developers to undergo a process of accreditation that will assess their
ability to build and sustain accessible web sites. In the way that lawyers
have the Law Society, accountants and engineers have their respective
chartered bodies, we're aiming to provide the same for the web design
industry, which is otherwise wholly unregulated.
We've got so much work to do, we don't know how long it's going to take.
We're not funded at this time and everyone does a bit in their spare time.
>We also work on smaller projects, promoting accessibility within the
digital arena, so it keeps us out of mischief!
I just wanted to let you know that this growing problem isn't going
unnoticed, and of course if any of you work for organisations that would
permit you to take time out 3 or 4 times a year for our regular meetings in
London, and feel you could contribute in any way, including marketing,
media, web design, accessibility, or even if you're just plain interested in
web accessibility, then drop me a line to my work address: lw@xxxxxxxxxxx
Tink.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 1:04 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: The Inaccessible Herts Society for the Blind Web
Site
The Herts inaccessible website problem may well be down to MS Word having
been used to create the page, according to one commentator on another list.
This sort of thing will be well known to those who conbtribute so
knowledgably to the blind webbers list. To me it simply points up the
arrant nature of some people who sell or offer their services as website
designers, but who cannot, and will not get to grips with propper XHTML page
coding, and probably have the brass nerve to dismiss people who know what
they are doing as pedants or nerds.
Trouble is that these people are too readily believed by some in the vol
sector and else where.
I can echo Brian Hartgen's commnets re. being able to mouse around the site
in question; in my case with Window-Eyes, not JFW, but as he points out,
the links are not actually revealed as such.
Ray
Personal emails: Email me at
mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: "brian hartgen"
| Hi John
|
| As has been suggested, I do think you need to contact Julie Howell from
RNIB
| about this site which is very difficult to use. Because I love using the
| Internet, I will try to get around any site I can with a screen-reader,
but
| this one is certainly a challenge.
|
| When I had a brief look, none of the leading screen-readers worked well on
| this site. However, my primary screen-reader I use is JAWS, and although
| JAWS reported the same number of links as you suggested on the home page,
| clearly when arrowing down there were items which were meant to be links
but
| were not showing up as such. Clicking on these with the jaws cursor did
get
| me to the pages I wanted, but this is not acceptable and the page should
be
| rendered correctly in the screen-reader's virtual cursor mode or
equivalent.
|
| Downloading a news-letter did not give me much information either. As you
| say, this is a protected word document with approximately 150 objects and
| several fields. The status of the protection is "form fields only",
meaning
| that you can only type into edit fields should they appear in the
document.
|
| I tried to unprotect the document, and could not because it required a
| password.
|
| Best of luck with RNIB, let us know how things go.
|
| Brian Hartgen
| E-MAIL: brian@xxxxxxxxxxx
| MSN: brian@xxxxxxxxxxx
| SKYPE: brianhartgen
| ----- Original Message
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