Re: A symbolic WAI homepage

Please contribute one  sentence (of 10 words or less) in plain english that
you feel really has to be within the 300 words I suggest for the WAI home
site in ten pages.
I have reviewed the WAI page below, it has not been very pleasant.
Please accept my apologies if I offend the authors.
There is much that is great, but it is very well hidden.
I really hope I found the right page folks.
I personally find the page http://www.w3.org/WAI/ very poorly designed.

Keep the language simple, and I will endeavour to source the symbols once we
have agreed the text.
If we limited ourselves to a flick book style with no cross links, we could
for this first draft possibly skip navigation, perhaps limiting ourselves to
a site identifier.

Alternatively you may all feel that creating a site that meets the needs of
ordinary users, rather than technical users might be more urgent.

REVIEW FOLLOWS

>Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
this logo could be about the same size as the text above or smaller and have
more impact if well designed.

>Resources  | Events |  Technical Activity | International Program Office |
Involvement/Information | Team | >Sponsors
The navigation bar is meaningless to a first time visitor, and I suggest
should not be on the home or splash page. In fact not within our 300 words.
One link somewhere will lead out for those that have understood what comes
before.

>March 10, 2000: User Agent Accessibility Guidelines become Proposed
Recommendation
What does this mean to a first time visitor? This is far too internally
focused for a public site it is something from an intranet in the wrong
place

>February 3, 2000: Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 become W3C
Recommendation
>ATAG Press Release, Testimonials, and Fact Sheet available
as above

>"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless
of disability is an essential >aspect."
>-- Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web
Excellent  this is probably sufficient for a splash.
"The web is for everyone.
We must help everyone to use it" with a photo (very small) or better line
drawing of Tim)
please improve on the above

>Mission
>The W3C's commitment to lead the Web to its full potential includes
promoting a high degree of usability for >people with disabilities. The Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI), in coordination with organizations around
the >world, is pursuing
OK so this is where my page ran out. this makes the whole page very
difficult to understand.
Well over 60% of the content was irrelevant to a first time visitor.
>accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology,
guidelines, tools, education & >outreach, and research & development.
Why does neither the navigation bar nor the next section "Resources on Web
Accessibility " follow the mission statement? There is not any point in
making this list and then confusing people by immediately ignoring it.

>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

>Resources on Web Accessibility
I do not propose to go through all of this in detail.
Suffice to say it is full of acronyms that are meaningless to the novice.
complain of navigation icons if you will this is at least as bad.
>Getting Started: Making a Web Site Accessible
>Quick Tips for Accessible Web Sites
Hooray! these should be next after the splash, (which I think may cover the
mission) and here they are. unfortunately the pages they link to need work.

I chose the Quick tips page because they cut to the action quicker.

>>QUICK TIPS TO MAKE ACCESSIBLE WEB SITES
>>For Complete Guidelines & Checklist: www.w3.org/WAI
>>Images & animations. Use the alt attribute to describe the function of
each visual.
>>Image maps. Use client-side MAP and text for hotspots.
>>Multimedia. Provide captioning and transcripts of audio, and descriptions
of video.
>>Hypertext links. Use text that makes sense when read out of context. For
example, avoid "click here."
>>Page organization. Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS
for layout and style where >>possible.
>>Graphs & charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute.
>>Scripts, applets, & plug-ins. Provide alternative content in case active
features are inaccessible or >>unsupported.
>>Frames. Use NOFRAMES and meaningful titles.
>>Tables. Make line by line reading sensible. Summarize.
>>Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at
www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT.

of these I selected the tips most relevant to a novice and disability ie alt
tags...
the site is at http://www.peepo.com/access
There is no need to tell people there is more to learn, they know this. They
will find out more as they enjoy the site and progress.

Events, News, History
Great titles, separate pages.
"News" We are writing the WAI site again in plain english" please submit
something better
"Events" probably skippable, 99.999% cannot visit the event.
"History" I cannot think of anything perhaps you can? maybe the first
graphics browser?

Questions
mail them to us,

Jobs
We need to employ or at least engage daily with people from all walks of
life, given they have access to a computer.
CD members would be great. Do you wonder how come we dont get inundated with
requests for info from the public.
Believe me it is not because they find it is easier to find the information
than mail us.
It is because it is very difficult to do either.


If you got this far, thanks.
Please contribute one  sentence (of 10 words or less) in plain english that
you feel really has to be within the 300 words

It was not Tatlin (a russian revolutionary artist), but someone very famous
with a simiar name within the UK CD world pointed out many years ago that it
was not possible to write about CD from a purely academic viewpoint, one had
to engage in it. This site will be far more accessible and the project
enormously improved by opening it to joe public.

jay@peepo.com

special needs teacher
web accessibility consultant

Received on Sunday, 9 April 2000 06:14:26 UTC