RE: Seeking guidance...

Jeffrey,

I, too, had a look at the page, and actually there are a couple of other
problems with it that you might want to address:

1. The text for the links in question is in the image itself (in fact, the
mouseover simply lights up the text). But that means that the text, which is
already so small that I can barely make it out (with 20/20 vision,
corrected), does not change size when the user increases the default text
size for the browser. There are no text versions of the links elsewhere on
the page, either. While a blind user with a screen reader could hear the alt
text for the links, a sighted user with poor near vision (like most older
folks) might have a very hard time with those links.

One possible solution (but not a very good one) might be to simply make the
text in the images larger. A better solution would be to add text versions
of the links elsewhere on the page. But probably the best solution would be
to pull the link labels out of the images and to use HTML text alongside the
images to label the links. The mouseover could then highlight the image (and
in IE you could use "hover" in the stylesheet (admittedly not standard CSS1)
to cause the link text to light up as well). This way the text would change
size with the browser's default text size. (The "home" through "media
coverage" links at the top of the page already work this way.)

By the way, the default text size on the site is extremely small in general.
I can barely read much of it. I have to set IE to "largest" text just to get
a reasonable text size.

2. This has nothing to do with the mouseovers, but the image in the center
of the page uses an animated GIF to cause the text to flash
blue-orange-blue-orange. This is a violation of the WCAG, and, to be frank,
rather annoying, too. The item is already center page--you probably don't
need to flash the text to draw attention to it.

There are a few other things you might want to think about, too. Your page
has no DTD, and uses some deprecated attributes. Also, a fairly complex
table is used to lay out the page, but then the items on the page don't seem
to be arranged into any sort of logical order--they're just kind of plopped
down here and there. I'm assuming you are using some kind of software to
generate the code (it's very difficult to read and very consistent--usually
signs of machine-generated code), but you may want to get in there and root
around a bit. The internals could use some tweaking.

Given your company's obvious commitment to accessibility, I figured you'd
probably want to know about any accessibility-related problems on your site.

Sincerely,

Charles F. Munat,
Munat, Inc.
Seattle, Washington



-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile
Sent: Wednesday, 05 April 2000 21:31
To: Jeffrey pledger
Cc: Crystal Allen; Melinda Morris-Black; Accessibility Listserve
Subject: Re: Seeking guidance...


Hi Jeffrey,

I had a look at the page. So far as I can see there are rollover highlights
that you can get through the mouse that are not replicated through keyboard
access. Although there is no functionality problem caused by the scripting,
it is not, so far as I can see, directly accessible - for example focussing
the link through the keyboard does not cause the highlight to appear. In my
understanding this would met the requirements to ensure the page works
without scripts or applets (6.3 - P1) - but fails the requirements to make
scripts etc directly accessible, and the triggers device-independent even to
the limited extent allowed for by HTML 4 (6.4 and 9.3 - both p2).

cheers

Charles

Is this correct, or have I missed something

On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, Jeffrey pledger wrote:

  if you go to our web site at http://www.abletv.net, you can see how we
  implemented our mouseover techniques that are accessible either through
  netscape or IE.  We have tested these out successfully with both JFW and
  window eyes and have them working in both browsers.

  Jeffrey pledger
  president, AbleTV.net At 01:21 PM 4/5/00 -0700, Crystal Allen wrote:
  >Is there a way to make mouseovers accessible?  If anyone could enlighten
me
  >with a technique to do this it would be much appreciated.
  >
  >Crystal Allen
  >
  >
  >----- Original Message -----
  >From: "Melinda Morris-Black" <melinda@ink.org>
  >To: "Accessibility Listserve" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
  >Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 9:13 AM
  >Subject: Seeking guidance...
  >
  >
  >> The issues surrounding inclusion of Javascript and accessibility are a
  >> little confusing. I'm looking to the list for clarification. What
  >> types/elements of scripts seem to be at issue? I know mouseovers are
  >> accessible if tagged correctly. However, I've heard negative feedback
  >> related to using Javascript forms. Any info on this subject is greatly
  >> appreciated.
  >>
  >> I've included a specific example of a script I'm checking for
  >> accessibility. It generates a rotating list of links on the home page.
  >>
  >> http://www.state.ct.us/
  >>
  >> Any feedback related to the accessibility is welcome.
  >>
  >> --
  >> Regards,
  >>
  >> Melinda Morris-Black
  >> melinda@ink.org
  >>
  >>
  >


--
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134
136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053
Postal: GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001,  Australia

Received on Thursday, 6 April 2000 01:27:22 UTC