Re: Amazon Access

From: "David Poehlman" <poehlman1@comcast.net>

> The address for the web site, discussed below is:
> http://www.amazon.com/access
> and it is easy to use, and nice and clean.

This is a good example of the disadvantage of having a "text only" copy of a
website for accessibility purposes. Apart from the argument that text-only
versions enforce segregation there is the underlying problem of keeping two
sites up-to-date.

For example, from http://www.amazon.com/ and enter "Accessibility" as the
keyword.
Do the same for http://www.amazon.com/access

For Books, the former returns:

1.) Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Website More Usable for Everyone
2.) CARM: California Accessibility Reference Manual
3.) A Basic Guide to Fair Housing Accessibility: Everything Architects and
Builders Need to Know About Fair Housing Act Accessibility Guidelines

while the latter returns

1.) Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Website More Usable for Everyone
2.) Web Accessibility for People With Disabilities
3.) Pocket Guide to the ADA: Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility
Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities, Revised Edition


I would expect to get the same search results no matter which front-end I
used (since Amazon is largely a database driven website), but this seems not
to be the case.

Recalling from Joe Clark's book (which I'm reading at the moment) "Separate
pages are not equal".


Mike.

Received on Monday, 24 February 2003 04:12:20 UTC