Re: bcab 10 Downing Street site: an opportunity?

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essage-Id: <l03130301b16ca56581c4@DialupEudora>
In-Reply-To: <199804241103.MAA22316@dns1.enterprise.net>

Greetings Peter et al.,

>The new website for number 10 Downing street was launched recently as
>part of the UK government's "IT for All" initiative.
>>It is, by a long stretch, the most astonishingly inaccessible site I
>have ever experienced.
>just how inaccessible it is, and, from the HTML experts, precisely what
>is wrong.   I shall of course run it through Bobby but need some human
>intelligence too.

Yes, the site is  staggeringly inaccessible to the point where it is a paradigm of its type. Those of you  who read my feature on this topic of 1996, or the paper I wrote and delivered at WWW6 last year will not be surprised if I make the following points:

1 Although the HTML is infelicitous at various points (OK - quite a number), the inaccessibility is to be attributed to more than this. As with language compiling - the HTML at this site could be technically perfect - yet it would still be inaccessible.

2 The design, look and feel, etc. of the site breach several very well established Computer-Human Interface guidelines, as well as most (if not all) web  accessibility guidelines

3 The design of the site is flawed from the perspective of accessibility and information retrieval (rather than browsing)

4 The information architecture which underpins the site is poor

I am very disappointed that the site is so inaccessible. I have been discussing  the issue of web accessibility with the Dept. of Trade and Industry's  Information Society Initiative since its inception in August 1996 - I was of course stressing the importance of the accessibility of the Internet and company Intranets and its implications for the employment opportunities of people with disabilities. I persuaded the DTI and ISI people to include some text about accessibility in their series of booklets for the general public and for small to medium size enterprises. I am concerned that there appears to have been no cross-fertilisation of ideas within the ISI which includes IT for All.  I have mailed them again in an attempt to understand the communication breakdown.

I would be very interested in further discussion.

With Best Wishes -