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RE: Pop-Ups Question

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From: Paul Bohman
Date: Jan 3, 2003 5:19PM

Are you referring to the ads that suddenly take over a page (acting like a
layer on top of the page) and force you to click on a button to close them?
Some sites like MSNBC, MSN, ESPN and a few others have been known to have
ads like this. If you mean something else, then please say so, but I'm going
to reply as if you mean the "layered" ads.

The first time that I saw an ad like this, it took me by surprise, confused
me momentarily, amused me slightly (it was an image of a car driving across
my screen, sending up clouds of smoke, with the sound of a roaring engine
and squealing wheels), and then made me angry. I realized that I had just
been forced to view a commercial, and that it had totally disrupted my train
of thought.

From an advertiser's perspective, this ad was a success. It grabbed my
attention and forced me to pay attention to the product being advertised. In
fact, it took me a good 5 to 10 seconds or perhaps more to figure out how to
make it go away. Of course, this was just my first experience with these
ads. With subsequent ocurrences I've been able to dismiss them more readily,
but I was genuinely disoriented the first time.

In this sense (disorientation), the ad was dangerous from an accessibility
standpoint. Anything that confuses a viewer without disabilities is likely
to be that much worse for people with, say, cognitive disabilities, or even
the milder attention deficit disorders.

The sounds of the engine and squealing wheels startled me, but the worse
part was that, for all intents and purposes, the page that I was just
viewing was now hidden behind a car and its trailing cloud of smoke. I
wanted to see a Web page, but this ad was now in my way. I knew that I
couldn't click the window closed, because what I wanted to see was in the
same window, but behind the ad somehow. I looked all around and then finally
saw a small word in the bottom right hand corner: "close". Ah, finally. I
clicked on the word "close", though with some trepidation, because I was
worried that the link might be deceptive. Maybe it would cause another ad to
appear. Maybe it would cause a series of popup windows. Maybe it would take
me to a porn site. I had no idea, but I could see no other way to get rid of
it, so I clicked on the word "close". Fortunately, the word was not
deceptive. I was able to continue reading my web page.

Your question has many answers that extend beyond the realm of pure
disability access, but anything that confuses or disorients reduces
accessibility in general.

A specific hypothetical case: if a blind person using a screen reader had
happended upon this page. The person would have heard the sound of an engine
and squealing wheels competing with the sound of the screen reader reading
the text on the page. The sounds would be confusing, but they might actually
cause the person to return to the top of the page and start from the
beginning if the interference of the extraneous sounds was too much.

Also, because the ad was done in a combination of javascript, CSS and other
elements, I doubt that it would have been keyboard accessible (how would a
keyboard-dependent screen reader user make it go away if the "close" link is
inaccessible?). In some cases, the layered effect would be irrelevant to a
screen reader user, because the screen reader can read beneath the layer,
but it depends upon how it is coded. Sounds, however, would still interrupt
the screen reader.

I guess what I'm saying is that those types of "layered" effects have the
potential to make the rest of the page very inaccessible. It's not that I
don't understand the plight of the advertisers. The method is bold and it
certainly does get people's attention. But, if the method can be avoided in
any way, avoid it.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu






-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:50 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Pop-Ups Question


Are pages that appear on top of the page and will not go away unless you
close them a good replacement for pop-up pages? These are called "model"
dialog boxes.
If not what is a good solution?