Re: examples of accessible e-commerce sites

Just to give a little independent verification from a totally blind screen 
reader user:

Yes, Amazon is one of my favorite shopping sites. For a large site with 
dozens of options it is relatively easy to navigate. Switch to their 
text-only version (generated on the fly) to avoid getting trapped in 97 
imagemap links.

Other sites (e.g., CDNOW, as of 6 weeks ago or so) have constant blurbs at 
the top of each page, so you hear them numerous times, even when trying to 
concentrate on entering credit card details, which is very distracting. 
Other sites make you enter your password each time you add something to the 
Shopping Cart. Still other sites make use of graphical buttons for the 
items to be purchased. Amazon avoids all these pitfalls.

Amazon may be getting too big for its own good, though. If I'm trying to 
buy books I don't want to hear about auctions, & if I'm trying to buy 
electronics I don't want to hear about the top 10 CDs.

Patrick
Not Amazon stockholder, but did get a free plastic coffee mug from them 
last year

At 12:48 PM 9/17/99 , Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>I just wandered through Amazon.com (since I recalled using it before) and
>although I didn't actually do the transaction (since I don't want to buy
>anything today) I put stuff in my shopping cart and went as far as
>registering my details without encountering any WCAG P1 failures. Then I
>realised there was a book I wanted to send. Turned out it was not in print in
>the US, but I found it in the UK and registered, bought a book, and sent it
>overseas.
>
>I knew the title I want, and got it by a search. This is not a complete test
>by any means, but Amazon is a pretty large and well-known site. I guess there
>are only about a zillion other ecmmerce sites I should test, but...
>
>Charles McCN

Received on Friday, 17 September 1999 17:16:59 UTC