Category Archives: Web Accessibility

Those of you who know that I am the wicked witch of the west when it comes to pdfs will no doubt find it amusing to imagine my consternation. I sent a report in a Word document for publication on a web site which I know to be infested with pdfs, only to discover it had been posted as a pdf! I completely forgot to ask them to publish in non-pdf format as well. And it has my name on it on their front page. Oh the shame of it!

For the uninitiated, pdfs, (portable document formats) are generally inaccessible to a number of disabled people, and a pain in the proverbial to a fair number of other people as well. You can find information about pdf pro’s and pitfalls and understand why these cause problems, if you don’t already.

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I went to the e-govt Wellington bar camp, and I have the Tee shirt to prove it. And no bar camp is not a boozy Saturday spent in a bar, attractive though that may be. A bar camp is a sort of un-conference where anyone can present on a related topic. It is very participatory, a bit anarchic and quite fun. You get to do a rant on your passion, and of course I did mine on accessibility. Shame not may people came, but still useful.

As examples other presentations looked at audience research, what a mature model might look like and how to get there, and ten things a web master could do to improve web sites and the semantic web. All good stuff.

It is always of value to spend a day immersing yourself in an aspect of your work in a relaxed atmosphere where you can talk freely with people in the same business as you are. Topics covered everything from the seriously geeky to the big picture strategic stuff with some thought-provoking discussion. I need to process for a bit. Hopefully there will be some tangible and positive outcomes.

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Some of the ugliest sites are the easiest to use. Yet there is a persistent view among the web community that web sites must be elegant and beautiful examples of the designer’s art to be worth anything. This often means thumbing the nose at web accessibility and usability conventions such as blue underlined links, and the use of colours for maximum visibility.

Trade Me, Amazon, Google , My Space, and YouTube are ugly websites. They are also hugely successful websites. They don’t win a lot of design awards, but who cares – they are easy to use for most people and they make a lot of money.

Which leads me to the question, who are design awards for and what is their purpose? Suffice it to say that a site that AccEase user testers rated as their worst site ever for usability and accessibility has continued to win a whole raft of awards. I say let the users be the judge.

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I received an email yesterday from a friend forwarded from the Blind Newsmail List. BT has launched a new online Inclusive Design Toolkit, at this year’s annual New Designers event at the Business Design Center, in Islington.

While this looks useful I found one example of ‘so called’ “inclusive design,” the Tesco web site had thought of screen readers only and may not function well for other disability groups.

I think I prefer the term Universal design, but I guess the more people who are talking and writing about, and actually doing it the better.

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