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Re: Accessible map site?

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Feb 10, 2006 4:30PM

Austin, Darrel wrote:
> On our new web site we're goig to have a locations directory and we want
> to link addresses out to one of the map sites (google/yahoo/mapquest,
> etc.) From an accessibility standpoint, is any one of those better than
> the others?

Google has the best maps (in my opinion) and a very clean, user-friendly
interface, but that darn AJAX thing to deal with. There's also the
JavaScript and user agent requirements.

Yahoo and Mapquest have better directions, but have ads, Flash, pop-ups,
and loads of things that will drive your users crazy. From a purely
standards-based perspective (alt text, form labels, and stuff), Mapquest
seems the best.

In short, take your pick of accessibility problems.

But I have to ask the question... if the maps themselves are useless to a
blind user, does the screen reader accessibility of the site that contains
them matter that much?

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org