archive: a positive experience for comparison

Kelly Ford just posted this on the WebWatch list.  It is relevant with regard
to how we at W3C present email archives on the Web.  - Al

Hi All,

This is as much about the concepts as it is the specific web sites being 
used.  But in using the web version of Yahoogroups this morning I noticed a 
featured labeled "expand messages" and exploring it leads to some 
interesting ideas.

On the Yahoogroups site Expand Messages reloads the page of messages 
displayed but with the full content, instead of just a link to the content, 
displayed.  The default is typically 30 messages at a time.  A table is 
used with message number and header info in one row and an empty cell and 
full content in the next.

The biggest complaints I've heard from people who use screen readers, 
myself included, about web-based e-mail and messaging systems is that 
finding meaningful content is a challenge.  Typically you move through all 
the navigation links, find the message of interest, open it and then repeat 
the entire process of finding content again.  The process gets old in a hurry.

The Expand Messages might be fine without table reading in that it loads 
the full content of all messages at once.  But that can be problematic 
because then the user must use some search strategy to move from item to item.

But with several screen readers and talking web browsers now supporting 
table navigation, you have a good combination for effective access to 
information.  I was able to quickly move through the list of messages, 
selecting the content that interested me.  In fact it was actually faster 
than opening the individual e-mail messages in an e-mail program.

Now I've used the web version of Yahoogroups before.  When in the collapsed 
view, they also use tables to create a message index.  That's fine but as I 
say when you open a message in this mode you have to sift through dozens of 
links to get to the content.  At least for me loading the full content with 
a feature like Expand Messages works.  Toss in a skip to content link and 
you can create a very screen reader friendly web-based messaging system.

To experiment with the web version of Yahoogroups in the expanded mode try 
visiting
<<http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/webwatch?expand=1>http://www.yahoogroups.
com/group/webwatch?expand=1>.  If you have 
never used the web version you may be prompted to create a Yahoo ID or even 
if you have to sign in to your account.

But again to me it isn't the web site as much as the combination of ideas 
that's of interest here.

Kelly


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Received on Saturday, 28 April 2001 13:42:39 UTC