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Thread: CAn this page be saved from itself?
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From: Steven C. Perkins
Date: Mon, Sep 15 2003 10:11PM
Subject: CAn this page be saved from itself?
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Hello:
The following page was just announced with great fanfare on another list.
I can't even begin to formulate a reply to them. Can this page be saved
and made accessible?
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/default.asp
What happens in JAWS and Home Page Reader? My copy of LynxW32 can't even
open the page.
Regards,
Steven C. Perkins
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From: Paul Bohman
Date: Mon, Sep 15 2003 10:55PM
Subject: RE: CAn this page be saved from itself?
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Steven C. Perkins asked:
Can this page be saved and made accessible?
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/default.asp
My reply:
First of all, I'll state the obvious: the entire page is one big Flash
object.
Second of all, I can infer from your question that you mean "accessible to
screen readers" when you ask if the page can be made "accessible." I just
want to throw out a little reminder that blindness is not the only
disability for which Web accessibility is important.
For example, if you had asked if this page is accessible to someone who is
deaf, the answer is "yes."
Is it accessible to someone with color-blindness? As far as I can tell, yes,
it is. I didn't see any information that was conveyed with color alone that
might be problematic for someone who is colorblind. (Though there are some
issues of contrast with the backround images).
Is it accessible to someone with low vision? Hmm. Perhaps, but there are
problems. In Internet Explorer and Netscape 7, the Flash object enlarges in
accordance with the size of the window. If I fill my entire screen with the
browser, then the text is a reasonable size, but for someone who has the
resolution set to 640 x 480 the text will be quite small. Not only that, but
the background will interfere with reading comprehension, especially on the
right-hand side. I would not rate this site as accessible to someone with
low vision. Even worse, when I opened the page in Opera (my default
browser), the whole Flash object was about 1.5 inches wide! Luckily, Opera
has the capability of enlarging the page up to 1000%, but the designers
obviously did not test their Flash object in Opera at all. If they had, they
could have fixed this obvious error.
Is it accessible to someone who cannot use a mouse? Well, I tested the page
by tabbing through it, and it's obvious that the authors didn't pay any
attention to the tab order of their links either. I would classify this as
horribly unfriendly to keyboard users, though perhaps it is not technically
altogether inaccessible, since the links can be clicked on, you'll just have
a nightmare of a time trying to get to the link that you want.
Is it accessible to someone with a cognitive disability, learning
disability, or reading disorder? That depends on the severity and type of
disorder. The background may be a distraction. They did do a pretty good job
of grouping the information into logical lists, so that's a good thing,
though the sheer number of links will be intimidating to some.
Now, as for people who use screen readers, the accessibility of the Flash
object will depend on which screen reader they have (and which version) and
on the techniques of the Flash designers. I didn't spend the time to test
the page with either JAWS or Window Eyes (the screen readers that can read
Flash), but based on their lack of attention to tab order, I can already say
that this Flash object was not designed with screen reader accessibility in
mind, because tab order is very important to screen reader users.
With those thoughts in mind, the answer to your question is that yes, the
page can be made more accessible.
There are two ways of making Flash objects more accessible:
1. Improving the accessibility of the Flash object itself.
2. Creating an accessible HTML alternative.
If the designers are excited about their Flash design, they are probably
unwilling to give it up, which is understandable, even if it isn't ideal.
The truth is that they designed this Flash object to look like a Web page,
so there is really no justification for using Flash at all! They could have
accomplished the same look and feel with HTML (and, in this case,
JavaScript).
If they are unwilling to give up the Flash interface, I would tell them to
create an HTML alternative to the whole thing. At the very least, they
should duplicate the links and put them into the same logical categories.
The quick and dirty way to do it would be to create one big Web page with
all of the links. Over time, they could improve the HTML version to make it
more user-friendly.
Of course, having two versions of the same Web page opens up a can of
worms--it means that you have double the work of maintaining both sites.
And, they would have to make sure that the link to the HTML version was
prominent on the page (and *before* the Flash object).
The best long term solution for this particular page would be to scrap the
Flash object altogether. There are appropriate uses of Flash. In fact, Flash
has some amazing potential in terms of accessibility for people with
cognitive disabilities, as well as for instructional purposes. But a menu
system is not the best use of Flash.
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
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From: pcaldwell
Date: Tue, Sep 16 2003 1:53AM
Subject: Re: CAn this page be saved from itself?
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At 5:09 am -0400 Steven C. Perkins said
>Can this page be saved
>and made accessible?
>
>http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/default.asp
>
My reply:
Visiting that page with a Mac I was taken to this page:
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/defaultmac.asp
This page proclaims itself as a "text-only page for Mac OS". Not
for those using assistive technologies, then.
The page consists of 193 links, and a search facility at the top
of the page: "quick site search" and "quick catalogue search".
There's no other text apart from a dozen introductory words at the
beginning. All the links have javascript-driven popups
substituting for title text, but no title or longdesc attributes.
A tabindex of '1' is specified for the "quick site search" box at
the top of the page, but not for the "quick catalogue search" box.
This is the only instance of tabindex, so the long list of links
is not accessible to the tab key.
As a sighted user with only slight difficulty using a mouse, for
me the text-only page is ideal: I'm in a library so the user
experience I want is the swift location and retrieval of
information, which this page provides.
I can't imagine that Cornell's "bricks and mortar" library is only
accessible to people with 20/20 vision and total mobility; I
wonder what the designers were thinking of.
Pauline
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From: Steven C. Perkins
Date: Tue, Sep 16 2003 7:43AM
Subject: Re: Can this page be saved from itself?
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Thanks to everyone for your replies. I am sending a private message to
the library director and a public message to the list where the page was
announced about WAI and Sec 508 with a link to a presentation I did in
June at the CALI Conference on "Creating Accessible Websites"
Regards,
Steven C. Perkins
On 16 Sep 2003 at 0:09, Steven C. Perkins wrote:
Date forwarded: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 22:06:34 -0600
Date sent: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 00:09:22 -0400
Forwarded by: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
From: "Steven C. Perkins" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Can this page be saved from itself?
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Send reply to: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Priority: normal
> Hello:
>
> The following page was just announced with great fanfare on another list.
> I can't even begin to formulate a reply to them. Can this page be saved
> and made accessible?
>
> http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/default.asp
>
> What happens in JAWS and Home Page Reader? My copy of LynxW32 can't even
> open the page.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steven C. Perkins
>
>
> ----
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, suspend, or view list archives,
> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
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From: William Allen
Date: Tue, Sep 16 2003 8:33AM
Subject: mouse problems
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I have a user who inadvertently clicks the right mouse button. The left and
right buttons are equally sensitive, but I'd like to be able to make the
right button require a little more effort to click. Any suggestions?
William
William Allen
Director, Center for Learning Technologies
Prof. Art History
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.clt.astate.edu/wallen
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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Tue, Sep 16 2003 9:36AM
Subject: Re: mouse problems
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You may try a track ball like the Kensington Expert Mouse
From: Holly Marie
Date: Wed, Sep 17 2003 7:03AM
Subject: Re: CAn this page be saved from itself?
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Bohman"
> Steven C. Perkins asked:
>
> Can this page be saved and made accessible?
>
> http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/default.asp
>
>
> My reply:
>
> First of all, I'll state the obvious: the entire page is one big Flash
> object.
A lot of excellent points made by Paul.
One more I would like to add. If the Flash is not absolutely necessary
and same can be provided with HTML, a thought might be given to download
time. Though we can test against guidelines, do manual checks on
extended items that miss testing, we also need to think about general or
basic usability items that enhance a user visit, including users with
Accessibility challenges.
Speed in load of content is one... and if deciding to offer an html page
alternative, I wonder about the length in time a visitor has to wait to
get that alternative link to load and work. Some people accessing web
sites already have a difficult enough time and it takes an amount of
effort to get to information and links, getting the information loaded
up quickly at the beginning.
This website seems like it might be frequently returned to for some
users, including users with a variety of challenges. This being the
case, and if the site wants to continue to offer Flash and an
Alternative html page, perhaps a cookie or recalled user preference
could remember the visitor or user choice on the previous visit and load
up the page display choice for the return visits[so they would not have
to wait through the flash page load to access the HTML pages again].
holly
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