[vicsireland] Re: Text-only website alternatives- good or bad?
- From: "Gerry Ellis" <gerry.ellis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 1 May 2006 15:17:12 +0100
Hi, sorcha,
Text only versions are a pain! I do not consider this an acceptable alternative
to a properly accessible site.
Tesco in the UK made a great deal of their text only site. soon, however, it
became obvious that the text only version did not have offers that appeared on
the main site. Irish transport sites which have a text only version are also a
load of .....
The legislation in ireland is untested in relation to access to web sites, so
that is an imponderable.
Take care,
Gerry Ellis
t/a Feel The BenefIT
Tel (+353-1) 282-7791
Mob (085) 716-8665
email gerry.ellis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you don't know where you're going,
How will you know when you get there?
----- Original Message -----
From: "sorcha moore" <sorcha.moore@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 2:55 PM
Subject: [vicsireland] Text-only website alternatives- good or bad?
Hi everyone,
I am a frustrated web accessibility developer. I spend my working
days finding ways to make sites more accessible and user friendly to
people and AT like screen readers.
I am frustrated because recently I saw an advertisement to submit
designs for a website. In the ad, the advertiser did state that the
site should be as accessible as possible, but added the requirement
".. a text only version of the site should be available to facilitate
the visually impaired...".
My question is can this decision to provide a separate version of the
website, be deemed discriminatory?
In my humble opinion, I do not see any need to provide a separate
website as it is not difficult to make most web pages compatible with
screen readers, but can we go as far as to see this as being
'discriminatory'?
I am very interested in getting your opinions/experiences with
text-only versions of websites. Please feel free to contact me
off-list if you prefer.
All the best,
Sorcha
(Apologies for not editing the subject title appropriately in my
previous email. I'm afraid, I am one of the "tsk"-ers when someone
else does it. I am using gmail which hides the subject field normally
so in my haste to get the email out, I totally forgot to do it -sorry,
sorry!)
> Hello,
> I don't know if this is the appropriate forum for my question, but I'm
> finding it difficult to get precise information.
> Does anyone know exactly what Irish legislation/policy/law is regarding the
> provision of text-only versions of state owned websites?
> Is it dicriminatory to provide a text-only version of a website rather than
> try to make a website accessible?
> The Web Content Accessibilty Guidelines on which the Irish National
> Disability Authority IT Accessibility Guidelines are based state "If, after
> best efforts, you cannot create an accessible page, provide a link to an
> alternative page that uses W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent
> information (or functionality), and is updated as often as the inaccessible
> (original) page" but I can't see this referenced on the Irish National
> Disability Authority IT Accessibility Guidelines...
> Kindest Regards,
> Sorcha
>
>
>
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