Re: accessibility makeovers

These are all good questions.

We contacted Barnes and Noble, but they never responded. I plan on trying
again. I'd kind of like for them to see for themselves what their site looks
like in an accessible format.

Your recommendation is a good one for the skip nav links.

The accessibility fixes themselves took about 20-30 minutes. However, it
took me a couple of hours to make their HTML valid and to tweak the layout
once the code was valid. Most of the accessibility errors (maybe 85%) were
inside of areas that are probably templated, so once these areas are fixed,
there would be no need to spend that same amount of time fixing every page.
(I'm sure that this is what your question is hinting at.) Barnes and Noble
could fix their template in a couple of hours, then they could let the
individual content editors enter in the alt tags and other attributes, which
would amount to an extra 30 seconds or so per book (or per CD, or whatever
else that they're putting into the database).

I guess the conclusion is that once you fix the template, the rest is
relatively easy.

Of course, I didn't push the limits of accessibility with my B&N makeover.
It isn't triple-A compliant, but it is much more accessible than it used to
be. I'd say it's somewhere near Double-A compliant.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
Web Accessibility in Mind (www.webaim.org)
at the Center for Persons with Disabilities (www.cpd.usu.edu)
at Utah State University (www.usu.edu)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Thatcher" <thatch@attglobal.net>
To: "Paul Bohman" <paulb@cpd2.usu.edu>; <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 4:10 PM
Subject: RE: accessibility makeovers


> Paul, that is terrific.
>
> Question: Did you get permission from B&N and if not, have you tried to
> contact then and to show them what you did.
>
> Recommendation: Make the skip text shorter. Too many words. Like "Skip to
> search" and "skip to main content"
>
> Question: How long did it take you?
>
> Question: Can you estimate the percentage of your work that fell into the
> area of the page that is probably part of a template?
>
> Jim
> jim@jimthatcher.com
> Accessibility Consulting
> http://jimthatcher.com
> 512-306-0931
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
> Behalf Of Paul Bohman
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 3:23 PM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: accessibility makeovers
>
>
> One of the concerns that Web developers often have is that they think that
> accessible web pages are boring or ugly. To disprove this myth, I am doing
> "accessibility makeovers" of some of the more popular sites on the Web. I
> decided to start with Barnes and Noble's Web site, because it was very
> inaccessible to screen readers, and the fixes were relatively easy.
>
> You can see the "before" and "after" version of the Barnes and Noble home
> page by visiting www.webaim.org/makeovers.
>
> I would like to do other sites, such as CNN, ESPN, etc, which are usually
> quite graphical and which fit the prevailing notion of "attractiveness" in
a
> Web page. I'd like to have as many examples as possible, in fact. That's
one
> of the reasons why I'm writing this email.
>
> Invitation to contribute:
>
> I invite anybody who is interested to do a web page makeover of a popular
> web site (just one page, e.g. the home page) so that it can be posted in
our
> WebAIM makeover "hall of fame." Your reward will be full recognition of
your
> efforts (the makeover will be posted on the web along with an
> acknowledgement of your efforts), the satisfaction of contributing to the
> education of webmasters everywhere . . . but, alas, there will be no
> monetary remuneration.
>
> The idea is to document the changes that you made to the page, and to
> provide a concrete example for other web developers to emulate. There are
> plenty examples of inaccessible design. I'm trying to put together a
> collection of good, accessible designs that are neither boring nor ugly.
>
> If you'd like to participate, contact me for more info
(paulb@cpd2.usu.edu),
> or just send me the before and after versions of the page along with a
> description of the changes that you made.
>
> Thanks so much!
>
> Paul Bohman
> Technology Coordinator
> Web Accessibility in Mind (www.webaim.org)
> at the Center for Persons with Disabilities (www.cpd.usu.edu)
> at Utah State University (www.usu.edu)
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 27 March 2001 19:12:51 UTC