Dear All,

(I should say that the following represents very much my own views, and
not those of my employer)

In response to this, I think it raises a really interesting point. Why,
oh why have we turned web accessibility into something to beat each
other over the head with?

The point, when you get right down to it, is to take a responsible
attitude to the way in which we present ourselves online so that we
minimise the obstacles people experience in getting to our stuff. 

There has never been, nor will there ever be, a completely accessible
website. Even one which is created using perfectly formed HTML which
validates to every guideline, new and existing, may still contain
content that is obscure, overly complex and hard to navigate.

And a website that does not validate, and which contains (shudder) Flash
content, may still contain content which delights and entrances all
sorts of audiences in all sorts of innovative ways which actually
promote, rather than impede, new modes of access. 

I have watched the web accessibility agenda develop over the past few
years, and I have been greatly encouraged by the sector's entire
attitude towards it. Along with the education and some parts of the
Government sector, we are years ahead in many ways, both in the efforts
we have made, and the resulting contribution to the development of both
standards and understanding. 

I would really like to think that things like the Jodi Mattes award,
which seek to recognise and celebrate these efforts, even in the
realisation that many sites still present some technical obstacles, are
showing the way forward on this one. 

I find a validator useful when I am building my site. I use tools which
show me how it will look to people who are colour-blind. I try and
remain aware of the new accessibility features which are beginning to be
built into multimedia content authoring tools. All these, I believe, are
responsible ways of approaching building a site. Am I going to beat
myself up over every spacer ALT tag I miss? No. And neither, I believe,
should anyone else. 

Apologies for taking up part of your Friday!

Nick 

-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Cristiano Bianchi
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 12:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: National Gallery Launches Two New Websites

Wow, that was strong. You make some sensible points, but a bit too
technically led, probably?
I mean:

> http://www.takeonepicture.org:
> Tiny default text size. Did anyone actually try viewing the site with
> larger-sized text before it was launched? It makes a bit of a dog's
> breakfast of the site, and actually makes it harder to read.

Very good point. It should work. But it does work well if you totally
disable the CSS. Not sure if it is really a problem.

> Perhaps a visit to the validator would be in order too. There's a lot
> of missing ALT attributes.

Not that many, in reality. Yes, a validator would fire a lot of errors,
but the missing ones are on spacers, for which is rather pointless to
have ALT's. Actually it make things more confusing. It's always a
problem when a machine reads and pretends to comment on something that
was created for humans. Accessibility is not a technical feature, it's
a design one, I believe.

> Microdot default text size again. Why should I _have_ to resize the
> text to maximum just to get it back to IE's (relatively comfortable)
> default size? Try text at 'largest' here:
> <http://www.takeonepicture.org/nesw/general.aspx?itemid=1>

That's taste, I guess. Verdana 10px is perfectly legible, if not, you
can set your monitor resolution to 800x600 and the site works
beautifully at that scale.

> alt="spacer", alt="divider" --incredible! No, not incredible, what's
> the word, oh yes: incompetent.

Yes, that could be better. Leave them out completely, but then your
validator would complain.

> Missing closing </li> tags (not allowed in XHTML).
> Lots and lots of 'click here'.
> Using styles instead of structural mark-up (<div class="title">).

That's bad.

> There's more, but there's a limit to how much I'm willing to type...is
> this yet more public money spent on sites that can't get the HTML
> basics right? And don't get me started on the fixed-width design...

Yes, I wouldn't start. What's exactly wrong with it?

I would think again. There is a lot of work and effort into it, to just
dismiss it superfically like that. There is MUCH worse around.

PS I have had nothing to do with the design of this site.

Kind regards, Cristiano


Cristiano Bianchi
keepthinking ltd

tel.            +44(0)20 7346 0305
mobile  +44(0)7739 041169
web             www.keepthinking.it

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