- From: Vadim Plessky <lucy-ples@mtu-net.ru>
- Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 19:11:31 +0000
- To: Scott Luebking <phoenixl@sonic.net>, w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
- Cc: jernu@VISUALFRIENDLY.COM
On Friday 14 December 2001 01:56, Scott Luebking wrote: | Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 09:57:12 +0100 | From: jernu@VISUALFRIENDLY.COM | Subject: Amazon's version for the Visually Impaired | | Do you know that amazon.com has developped a specific version of the | site for the Visually Impaired ? | | See http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/15199.html for an article | and http://www.amazon.com/access to reach the site. | | When we saw it we (the usability team) say : | [...] | | We ask on a french list for the blind what they think about this site, | the way it is designed and is utility... For the moment, we are very | surprised by the answers ! Blind people do not find it so efficient : | they have the feeling of a "poor site" and they absolutely dislike that | there are two versions of the same site : one for "normal" people and | one for "visually impaired" ! They think designers have to put all their I can understand that. Any kind of discrimination is BAD. Amazon should use CSS stylesheets to turn off unnecessary elements in Aural rendering. Just simple { display: none } will help. | efforts in designing one and only one site, and not to make "ghettos" | for the blind. | | What do you think about that ? It seems that the text only version is | preferred because much more informations are presents ! | Someone has tested this version ? Ancient wizdom says: "One URL is better than thousand words" http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Fsubst%2Fhome%2Fhome.html%2F104-4548293-7908700&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=%28detect+automatically%29 and 2 URLs more: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fo%2Fdt%2Fupda-1.0-pocketpc%2Fsubst%2Faa%2Fupda%2Fhelp.html%2F104-4548293-7908700&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=%28detect+automatically%29 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ecommercetimes.com%2Fperl%2Fstory%2F15199.html&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline (second is for original ecommercetimes.com article about Amazon Access site) Short resume: none of Amazon sites validates with W3C Validator. | Is it the better way to improve accessibility (visual accessibility) ? | And what about the URL ? Is it the good name ? Amazon should try to build valid HTML (or Valid XHTML, or Valid XML) first, than think about "accessibility issues" or "mobile users" or whatever. If they developed XML-based site, there should be no problem with translating XML to XHTML, or developing accessibility-enabled CSS stylesheets. My [personal] opinion about Amazon sites, both Amazon.com and "for mobile users" - they are *UGLY*! That's one of the reasons why I don't use Amazon.com at all. (another reason: their Cookies policy) | | Of course, i will try to make a summary to the list of all the answers i | will get ! Yes, please, and cc'me in those summary. I would be pretty much interested to know what sites blind users _like_ - I dislike [design of] most of web sites on Internet and really want to know if there are any GOOD sites left - which I haven't seen so far. | | Jerome. -- Vadim Plessky http://kde2.newmail.ru (English) 33 Window Decorations and 6 Widget Styles for KDE http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html KDE mini-Themes http://kde2.newmail.ru/themes/
Received on Sunday, 16 December 2001 11:10:51 UTC