RE: New W3C Site Design

--On 8/25/00 5:24 PM -0400 "Bailey, Bruce" <Bruce_Bailey@ed.gov> wrote:

> Seems to me they violate (P2) Checkpoint 5.3:  Do not use tables for
> layout unless the table makes sense when linearized.
>
> How is [NavBar] [W3C Links: A to Z] [News and Content] [More Links and
> Search] [NavBar] a logical reading order?

Seems to me that "logical reading order" is very much defined by what a 
given audience member is interested in reading. If the designers have 
determined that the bulk of the users coming to the site are looking for 
the pages on the buzzword acronyms then why shouldn't the links to the 
acronyms come first?

Visually it appears that they are trying to serve the information needs of 
three separate kinds of audiences with a 3 column table. When linearized 
one gets the columns from left to right. Seems to me that in charging they 
violate checkpoint 5.3 that we are getting into untenable waters which say 
that no site with a wide audience is going to have a logical reading order 
for all of its audience members.

I would be much more willing to accept that they are violating checkpoint 
5.3 if a user got 1 or 2 links then the first news item then some more 
links and so on. But in this example it seems that the sections are very 
much grouped logically.

Mitake.

Mitake Holloman Burts              mitake@klas.com
Raleigh, NC

Received on Friday, 25 August 2000 18:22:33 UTC