Thanks for your comments Peter, we'll look into the points you mentioned.
The sites are both huge and the Pevsner site was refreshed recently, which
is where the odd tweak may have slipped through. You can't be all things to
all people and we agreed with the museum that NN4 would not be supported.
This was backed up by research that we did that suggested the NN4 population
is only about 4-5% of the browser world (and falling).
We have a policy of always producing material that meets accessibility
standards - with the Elmbridge site we went further and also had input from
RNIB and the local society for the visually impaired. Even the kiosk was
purpose built with wheelchair users and the visually impaired in mind. The
colour scheme of the site was validated by both groups too and found
acceptable - nothing better than getting some real input!
The kiosk runs the same web pages, full screen (and protected) and to help
accessibility further, we got the singer/presenter Toyah Willcox to narrate
key elements in a series of video bytes.
The NOF Digitise standards are an excellent benchmark for projects and we
always recommend to out customers that they should be used (even for non-NOF
projects!).
The accessibility issue is always a topical one. I'd like to think that the
sites that we have put up demonstrate that design does not have to be
sacrificed to meet the guidelines and also that tools like Flash can be used
sensibly.
Regards
Chris Meaney (AIMC)
Managing Director
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-----Original Message-----
From: Gray, Peter [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 January 2003 12:31
Subject: Re: Web sites of potential interest
> http://www.hcsminerva.com/elmbridge/ - Elmbridge e-museum; designed to
> provide greater accessibility to the museum (it sits on 2
> kiosks in the museum and on the web-site; was created with input from the
partially
> sighted and RNIB)
The kiosk version won't be a problem, but the web version crashes NN4.7
(Win98se). I'd import the style sheet to hide it from NN4. It works fine in
Opera 5.12 when I turn off style sheets (it works with them on as well, I
just wanted to see the "un-styled" version). I'd be interested to see it on
a machine that doesn't have Comic Sans, if only to find out what font gets
displayed instead!
The css validator at jigsaw.w3.org gives a number of errors, but only the
last two are significant (the rest relate to scrollbar properties), and an
impressive list of warnings, mostly about background-color/color potential
problems (many, probably most, of which could be safely ignored).
Nice to see an imagemap used properly!
>
> http://www.lookingatbuildings.org.uk/ - from Pevsner's Architectural
> Guides - contains a glossary, a section on how buildings are
> constructed and
> profiles of several cities' buildings. Has quite a few interactives.
>
You have the "valid HTML4.01" logo/link -- but it isn't! There's a problem
with your unordered list (it doesn't like it being nested within <p> tags),
and a missing alt attribute. Changes since the page was first validated?
That aside, I think this site shows just how you can use Flash to add
information, explanation and interactivity to a web site, rather than what
all too often happens, substitute animation for information. It's also a
great example of flexible design - flowing to fit the user's window, not
nailed to some fixed-width paper design.
Bit of a dog's breakfast in NN4 (the King of Broken Browsers), though.
Perhaps use an imported rather than a linked style sheet? A plain html
version will work fine (Opera 5.12 with style sheets off), and I think
that's all that should be required of a web site.
What's good about these sites is that even when there are accessibility
errors, they are minor, and they are isolated, because the sites show clear
evidence that accessibility was included from the beginning, rather than
being seen as a bolt-on extra.
To miss one alt attribute is mistake. To miss them out consistently begins
to look like carelessness.
> Regards
>
> Chris Meaney (AIMC)
> Managing Director
>
Best wishes
Pete (off to try them with Lynx!)
--
Peter M Gray
Museums Officer
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