Re: Comments on Beta Web site design

On 17 Sep 2009, at 6:08 PM, Greg Lowney wrote:

> A few comments after a quick pass over the current incarnation of http://beta.w3.org/ 
> , as of 2009-09-17 1 PM PDT.

Hi Greg,

We'll do our best to handle your comments in the time we have  
remaining before deployment. Thanks for sending them.

  _ Ian

>
>
> 	• The tiny triangle used to indicate expanded/contracted content is  
> too subtle, making it both hard to tell if something is expanded or  
> contracted and hard to see that you have the option. (Just because  
> Apple uses it doesn’t, in this case, make it good—easily perceivable— 
> user interface design.)
> 	• When you tab to the three views buttons (print, mobile, desktop)  
> the focus rectangle stretches all the way from the edge of the W3C  
> logo to the button that has the focus, including any other buttons  
> to its left. It should be only on the button that has the focus.
> 	• I consider the style imposed for links (a thick but very light  
> blue underline) to be too subtle and hard to see, especially on the  
> light gray background where the contrast is very low.
> 	• When overriding author-specified colors (e.g. in Firefox, turning  
> off Tools -> Options -> Content -> Colors -> Allow pages to choose  
> their own colors, instead of my selections above) and leaving the  
> default white background, all icons become invisible, being white  
> lines on the default white background. (This includes the buttons  
> for Print, Mobile, and Desktop views are invisible, as well as icons  
> in the list of Standards.)
> 	• Interesting that neither the U.S. nor North America are not  
> listed in “W3C By Region”; are the designers U.S.-based and consider  
> it above such categories :-)
> 	• The Tab order is quite inconsistent with the visual layout. The  
> Tab order should generally go left to right, top to bottom, except  
> where there is a good reason to do otherwise. The current page  
> starts with the “Skip” link on the right side, third line down, then  
> jumps to the upper left for the W3C logo, then goes to the Search  
> field (far right, second row down), then UP to the drop-down list of  
> regions, then RIGHT to the Go button, then skips LEFT to the left- 
> most view button, then RIGHT through the other enabled view buttons,  
> then down and to the left to the Standards page tab and rightwards  
> through them, then SKIPS RIGHT to the “Seach” button that should  
> have been immediately after the Search box., etc.
> 	• The “Permalink” buttons should have unique Alt text, as in  
> “Permalink for W3C Announced Two New Co-Chairs…”.
> 	• When Images are turned off there is nothing replacing the View  
> button icons; there should be Alt text for these images.
> 	• DIV elements used to divide the page into navigational sections  
> should have Title attributes giving them human-friendly names, so  
> that users of assistive technology can navigate easily.
> 	• When Images are turned off, and using the default color scheme  
> that has a white background, the years for events are nearly  
> invisible, being white text on a light gray background.
> 	• When text size is enlarged sufficiently (in Firefox 3 or Safari  
> 4, View -> Zoom), the links for Standards, Participate, etc.  
> disappear altogether as the text is below the bottom edge of the div.
> 	• With a large minimum text size set the links for Standards,  
> Participate, etc. are cut off because the size of the div containing  
> them does not grow to accommodate their increased height. (In  
> Firefox 3, Tools -> Options -> Content -> Fonts & Colors  ->  
> Advanced -> Minimum Font Size; in Safari 4, Edit -> Preferences ->  
> Never use fonts smaller than -> 20.)
> 	• With a large minimum text size set the Event dates overlap each  
> other as their containing boxes don’t grow in height to accommodate  
> them. In Safari 4, the lines of text for one entry overlap each  
> other because their vertical spacing does not increase sufficiently.  
> (In Firefox 3, Tools -> Options -> Content -> Fonts & Colors  ->  
> Advanced -> Minimum Font Size; in Safari 4, Edit -> Preferences ->  
> Never use fonts smaller than -> 20.)
> 	• In Internet Explorer 6, the page does not respect text size  
> changes specified by the user (View -> Text size -> Largest).
> 	• When increasing the font size (e.g. in Firefox 3, View -> Zoom)  
> the bottom section of the page does not text-wrap to the window  
> width. (The rest of the page does.)
>
> Oddly enough, I've also encountered some strange but not replicable  
> behavior. For example, once the two sections on the left were both  
> labeled "Web for All", once the amount of content increased when I  
> browsed away and back, etc.
>
>     Thanks,
>     Greg

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447

Received on Thursday, 17 September 2009 22:26:21 UTC