WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

FEMA site

for

From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Sep 12, 2005 7:20AM


Just something to monitor... FEMA's website has a form allowing people
who were affected by Hurricane Katrina to register for government
assistance. Small problem - the form requires IE6. Now, the faq for
the form does actually say that IE6 is required and they are in the
process of modifying the application. It used to say "Yes and no" to
the "Do I need Internet Explorer to Register for Assistance Online", but
for now it just says "Yes". They also fixed what I considered to be an
issue by supplying a link for people to download IE6 - that's just been
added over the weekend, but they still don't have a link to download a
PDF viewer, although they provide links to PDF documents on the
registration page.

I may be too optimistic, but I really do believe they are working on the
form to make it accessible to people who don't have IE6. What still
puzzles me though is how common it still is to design a web-based
application for one particular technology and then have to create hacks
to accommodate other technologies.

Michael Roush