Re: Template for Accessible Web Page

On 24 Mar 2008, at 17:34, Haileselassie, Antonio O. (HQ-LM020) 
[InDyne, Inc] wrote:
> Here’s a suggestion:
>
> http://www.adobe.com/resources/accessibility/dw8/dw_templates.html

I downloaded the first set of templates offered form this page, and  
looked through the index.html file. I only gave it a cursory  
examination, but a list of problems that I compiled in about five  
minutes follows. I wouldn't call this template "accessible", far from  
it, it is one of the more inaccessible pages I've seen for a while.

* The lynx test:

    Noble,  
Pennsylvania                                                             
                                                                         
        Town of Noble,  
Pennsylvania                                                             
                                                                         
        * ABOUT
* [pipe.gif]
* MAYOR
* [pipe.gif]
* COUNCIL
* [pipe.gif]
* DEPARTMENTS
* [pipe.gif]
* EDUCATION
* [pipe.gif]
* HISTORY
* [pipe.gif]
*  
CALENDAR                                                                 
                                                                         
                         Quicklinks  
[Select....................................>] [BUTTON]

That's a big failure.

* XHTML in a world with Internet Explorer

* Transitional (when the differences between Transitional and Strict  
are tiny other that the addition of things which violate WCAG)

* No XML prolog (required if not UTF-8) but a claim that it is  
ISO-8859-1

* Navigation implemented as a select element ... and dependant on  
JavaScript

* JavaScript commented out. This was encouraged in HTML 4.x to  
protect pre-HTML 3.2. In XML, however, it is an actual comment. This  
causes the document to depend on being served as text/html rather  
then application/xhtml+xml (which the specification says it SHOULD be  
served as).

* Lack of label elements

* Invalid

* ASCII art used to separate list items ... no li elements in  
evidence on some lists.

* ALL CAPS used instead of CSS. IIRC, this causes some screen readers  
to spell the word out as an abbreviation.



-- 
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/

Received on Monday, 24 March 2008 18:04:35 UTC