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RE: Pop-Ups Question

for

From: tedge@tecaccess.net
Date: Jan 3, 2003 5:38PM

What this is for is a e-learning site. They want to move away from
pop-up because of the accessibility problems. What they want to replace
it with is a layered page that appears on top of the page and does not
go away unless you close them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Bohman [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 7:08 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: RE: Pop-Ups Question


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 solutio