E-mail List Archives

Search E-mail List Archives for

Number of posts in this thread: 2 (In chronological order)

From: Jared Smith
Date: Wed, Nov 10 2004 1:22PM
Subject: Feedback request - online discussion forum
No previous message | Next message →

I'm in the process of accessifying a Web-based, commercial discussion
forum application and would like some feedback. The forum can be found
at http://ncdae.org/forum/

If you'd like to log in and test, use the usernames of test, test1,
test2, or test3. The password is user. Or, you can create your own
username.

Here are my requirements:
- The forum must be full featured, meaning it looks and functions like
other commercial forum applications. Graphics, colors, smiley icons,
posting of images, subscribing to threads, etc. must be included.
- It must be moderately accessible, but not at the cost of sacrificing
all of the above functionality.
- There is an initial orientation to such applications that ALL users
must experience. I hope to write a tutorial describing the main
functions and layout, etc. At this time, comments like "the concept of
threaded forums are too difficult for blind users" will not be
considered.

What I've done so far:
- Modified templates to be HTML compliant. The code is not pretty
(lots of nested tables), but it is compliant.
- Added form labels to all (I think) forms.
- Identified table headers for appropriate tables.
- Added an option to skip navigation.
- Added alternative text to all images, except those embedded within
messages.
- Stripped out extraneous information and functionality that is not
vital.
- Removed javascript redirects for pull-down menus.
- Reworked the CSS to allow scalable text and scalable page widths.

Things I'm working on and aware of:
- The navigation elements may be confusing. I'm trying to find a way
to give quick access to various topics and access to specific portions
of the page. Ideas are welcome.
- Javascript is required for the application to function. Period.
- Popups are used in a few places. Without some pretty major reworking
of backend code, the pop-ups will probably stay. What are your
thoughts on this.

Any other comments or recommendations you have would be appreciated. I
believe there is a real need for accessible discussion forums that are
also full-featured. I'm trying to find a nice balance between
usability/accessibility and functionality/bells-and-whistles.

Jared Smith
WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind)
Center for Persons with Disabilities
Utah State University

From: reply-to:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:references;
Date: Wed, Nov 10 2004 2:41PM
Subject: Re: Feedback request - online discussion forum
← Previous message | No next message

> Any other comments or recommendations you have would be appreciated. I
> believe there is a real need for accessible discussion forums that are
> also full-featured. I'm trying to find a nice balance between
> usability/accessibility and functionality/bells-and-whistles.

The colors on the board are a nice contrast for color blind people.

Too small of text in the scrolling box on T&C - I had to bump my text
size up to read it.

Functionality issue:
Once I joined (I'm on win xp firefox 1) from the success page I
clicked on login, and it didn't work. Had to go to the home page.
Was able to log in from there.

The email was received timely, the info was consice, but I would
suggest a link to the forum on it.


I felt that the profile button shouldn't be the first one, since once
you've edited your profile, you wouldn't go there a lot. IMO My
Forums or Search wold be a better choice as the first button and
Profile at the end near logout.

In the category drop down it would be helpful if these were alphabetized.

When replying to a message, once again the type was very tiny in the
entry area, but it did resize, but I shouldn't have to.

After I subscribed and returned to My Forum, the topic title was
there, but not the category, which wold be informative to have.

And overall note is that I do like to see the language attribute in
the html tag and this site doesn't have it, and there are a few
depricated attribute uses still.

It would be nice to have a help link, though I see in your post that
you're going to add a tutorial, so this comment probably isn't valid.
What I was looking for though were things like can a user add a
category or only the admin. I saw that is said you could add a news
item and when the mouse went over it the color changed so I thought
it was a link... but no, not clockable and I couldn't find where to
add a news item. And not being the smartest user, I couldn't figure
out how to add a favorite.

I will play more later ( do have to work) and send more feedback

--
Susan R. Grossman
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =