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Re: Accessible NCAA Tournament Bracket 2009

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From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Mar 19, 2009 6:35AM

Andrew Hart (Simius Puer) said:

Hopefully you'll never need one [a custom 404 page] but it's always a good idea to have one to assist those that do end up there as the default one is inherently inaccessible and offers poor usability and user-experience too.

Cliff Tyllick responds:

I have often wondered why 404 pages typically do not do a better job of giving people links to key portions of the site. Most don't even reproduce sitewide navigation. Here's a typical message:

"Page Not Found

You may have typed the address incorrectly or followed a broken link on this or another site. Visit our home page to access the major areas of our Web site. Direct technical questions about our site to [our webmaster's e-mail]."

Why not make it a habit to add a useful set of links to the 404 page? Based on error reports, it's even possible to figure out what information is likely to be most helpful to the majority of folks who have been getting 404 errors recently. Or you could explain recent major changes and accommodate customers affected by them:

"Oops! The page you are looking for, [bad url], does not exist.

If you are looking for [content recently moved], try [new url of a key page]. We have recently reorganized that section of our site.

You may also use these links to return to our site:

[list links to main navigational pages here]"

Doesn't that make sense?

Cliff Tyllick
Web development coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512/239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED>
>>> Simius Puer < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 03/19/09 4:31 AM >>>
Hi Terry

Great to see such accessibility effort going into a not-for-profit project!

A few thoughts:

- The nav with anchors (which are not present btw) needs to be repeated
between regions, or possibly better to have a single instance the user has
some method to jump back to
- The data for each section is quite heavy. I imagine the users with
screen readers may benefit from some additional sub-navigation, say, to jump
between rounds.
- The maximum line length needs to be defined (talking about the
text-pages here which are currently 'liquid') and set according to
best-practice for readability. I know you are focusing on non-sighted users
primarily but overly-long lines reduce the readability for sighted users,
especially those with tunnel-vision (or even if they are just using a
high-res monitor)
- Check for XHTML validation results as you have a couple of minor errors
which might cause issues.

The help page is missing (I realise this is probably a work-in-progress) but
that also highlights the lack of a custom 404 page. Hopefully you'll never
need one but it's always a good idea to have one to assist those that do end
up there as the default one is inherantly inaccessibly and offers poor
usability and user-experience too.

Have a good day.