Re: Accessibility tests of Australian University homepages

At 10:34 AM +0100 5/9/07, Andy Laws wrote:
>I am sorry but how can any one with a site such as 
><http://www.hereticpress.com>http://www.hereticpress.com advise any 
>body on web accessibility, this is the most inaccessible site I have 
>ever come across. Yes it meets all the w3c standards, but it 
>accessible? No. it is estimated that in the UK that up to 10% of the 
>adult population suffers from some form of cognitive disability and 
>with a population of 52milion that amounts to some 520,000 users in 
>the UK alone, are excluded from using your site. Due to your choice 
>and use of color, I have tested your site through
>
>


FWIW, I don't think it's the most inaccessible site ever, but it does 
have some issues.

1) I do object to the looped animated logo as the default style. 
Animations are distracting to people with certain cognitive 
disabilities (and it's a bit vertiginous).

My recommendation would be to have the logo loop once or twice, then stop.

BTW - Just because a bad color choice or endlessly looping animation 
comes from a CSS stylesheet doesn't make it any better...

2) As for colors, I think people are objecting to the neon orange and 
purple effect because it is tending to produce a visual vibration 
(because of simultaneous contrast)  and simultaneous contrast can 
reduce legibility.

I think the same is happening with the cyan, green and purple text so 
close together. Most of the colors are 100% saturated so are prone to 
simultenous contrast. If you use this as a default color scheme, I 
might scale back the saturation (little shifts can make a big 
difference).

if you're not sure...just ask someone prone to migraines what he or 
she thinks. The whole site is making me a little nauseated (sorry to 
be so candid).

I can see though that you got in all your ALT tags and headers. This 
is a great step, but as you can see, it's just part of the equation.

Elizabeth

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Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer
Education Technology Services, TLT/ITS
Penn State University
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Received on Wednesday, 9 May 2007 13:11:46 UTC