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Re: Wired News Redesigned for Accessibility

for

From: Holly Marie
Date: Oct 11, 2002 2:26PM

From: "Jared Smith"

| It's great to see so many sites taking steps toward accessibility -
| especially informative, useful, and educational sites such as
| wired.com. I couldn't resist running some reports on the new site and
| though they have definitely made progress, their claims fall short.
They
| don't yet meet WCAG priority 1
|
http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/bobbyServlet?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired
.com


| nor are they using valid XHTML.
| http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com

Unfortunately, links with unescaped characters and a couple of
attributes in ad based links that are fed server side are the only non
validating XHTML. This is often a problem with trying to link up to many
fine resources on the Internet, including news sites, educational sites,
and coroporate or business sites that use those lengthy and often
cumbersome data filled URI/URLs that often will not validate for XHTML.
These ad links may be coming in from a server and being fed into the
page that is hosted on such a server and I suppose we should all not
only be admonishing Advertisers about ads that intrude on content
delivery[like the flashy flash type ones earlier mentioned today in
conjunction with Yahoo!, but we should also be putting these deliveries
and people delivering such items under the light and demanding more
accessible ads if they are to be showing these at all. Geocities,
Yahoo!, and a myriad of others. This includes proper links, proper
Alts, and proper content or words for such links or ads. Though people
accessing these ads hearing click here or no content may actually be
better off than those of us that have to put up with the distractions,
blinking, and annoyingly disruptive display tactics.

So I think simply stating they are not XHTML compliant is easy to say,
but looking closer at the errors or reasons behind the failure to make
100% valid or compliance is indeed in order.

Like those using FP to develop sites, like those not placing a DTD in
the head, some of these sites may be 100% compliant on content, but miss
on some finer points like a Doctype in the head, really only necessary
for validation, in many cases.

| It becomes quite clear that with a little education, such sites could
| be made accessible AND standards bases. I rarely rant about
| inaccessibility of sites, yet when one self-promotes itself behind
| a false front of accessibility and standardization, I tend to get a
| little irritated.

I don't believe they claimed to be 100% accessible but did state that
they are more accessible to visually impaired. Which I do believe is the
case. One can resize the text for view and get the content fine. Other
sites that fix text sizes cannot say the same.

If one reads the other article involved with making this web site into a
redo, one will see there was a lot of education, trial and error into
what was used and how decisions were made to use what was used. I think
this is a good education for many to see. How difficult it can be to
make a site transform in this way, and some of the compromises,
pitfalls, and paths on the way to getting the job done.

An Interview With Douglas Bowman of Wired
http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2002/wired-interview/


Here is one that does not even validate for HTML4,01 transitional,
though they sell their software or place it in other software to make
sure we all do? Now this makes less sense to me. And some of these
errors are purely sloppy markup. Perhaps they should have run their
software on their own site.
http://www.usablenet.com/


Yeah, I am irritated also. But, I am pleased immensely by the strides
and efforts that Wired has made, and unfortunately due to the ads that
get fed in, they do not completely validate for XHTML, but I am sure
they will work on that aspect. Maybe they should pull the ads until the
suppliers can conform? There is another idea.

holly


see more background information regarding the compliance failure also
over at zeldman.com today.
http://www.zeldman.com/daily/1002a.html#wired

I am not sure whether or not the Accessibility issues are directly
linked to the ads, also. I need to look at that valdation more closely.
First reports back by others that have tried the site have said it does
seem to work out and deliver well. And I suppose that matters most.
Sometimes tests fail to include user experience.










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