I mean no harm here but there seems to be more compromise than is
necessary or perhaps justifyable here.  the target you site is filled
with individuals with disabilities who may or may not have a high speed
connection and for many the flash is just purely an obstacle.  if you
can't do without it, link to it and instruct those who want it to follow
that link.  Targets are non principle anyway because the web is world
wide.  One blind guy giving you high marks is not enough.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rosemary Ernst" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: Building a web site


Jim,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I posted our site to this list
looking for feedback when testing the re-engineering and got no
response. I
did test the site for accessible usability with a blind user who
teachers
people with vision loss how to use the computer. He gave us high marks.
Its
nice to hear from someone at EASI!

I'll take this opportunity to share my process for any other web
designers
or programmers out there who might be interested.

Our goal is Universal Design, including accessibility. This always
involves
some compromise, but we strive for win-win.

I agree about the Flash opening and raised this issue during re-
engineering. The decision to keep it was based on the following logic.
Our
target market is agencies and corporations (who have high-speed access),
therefore the Flash issue basically disappears for our target market.

The counter is handled by another company who has not yet updated to be
accessible. Thank you for raising this issue. I was aware that the
counter
was not accessible, but did not realize it would matter to users. My
mistake. I will look into a more accessible counter.

As for the contact information, your comment helped me re-think my
universal design compromise for that page. Please check out my fix and
see
if it suits you.

The actual contact information has always been on the page where you
want
it to be, but it is a graphic. This might seem quite odd for basic
information, but it also includes our logo and a layout we wanted to
keep.
This layout is not yet possible with cascading style sheets, so I
thought I
would just use the alt attributes in the code. Since the entire address,
phone number and email exceeds the character length recommended for alt
attributes, I tried to implement the longdesc attribute -- only to
discover
this doesn't yet work in the browsers. So I used a work around fix that
involves creating a link on a graphic that is 1 pixel by 1 pixel and
invisible. This resulted in screen readers needing two clicks to get the
basic information. My new fix makes the address and phone info available
as
the alt tag for the main graphic and the email link is on the invisible
graphic. My lesson here is an old one: keep it simple!

Thanks again for checking out the site. More feedback is Welcome!

Rosemary


On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 09:40:44 -0600, Jim Rebman <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>At 09:11 AM 6/13/01 -0500, you wrote:
>>Seward Learning Systems, Inc. can help you. Check out our site at
>>www.sewardls.com, which I recently re-engineered for greater
accessiblity.
>
>
>Rosemary,
>
>While it may be more accessible, I find myself wanting it to be  more
>*usable*.  What do I mean?
>
>For one thing, the Macromedia Flash stuff makes the page load time
>unbarably slow (several minutes on my dial-up connection), and it is
only
>because that I wanted to see the page that I waited for it -- under
normal
>circumstances, I would have aborted tthe page load because anything
that
>takes that long to bring up is generally not worth my time.
>
>Second, the page counter is not accessible, or simply does not work.
>
>Thirdly, why do you force your users to go through two links to get to
the
>actual contact information (address and phone numbers) when that
>information should be on the page titled "contact information" directly
off
>the main page.
>
>I admit that I only took a brief look at the site, so I don't know if
there
>are other usability issues, but accessibility without usability is just
as
>problematic as usability without accessibility.
>
>Just my observations.
>
>-- Jim
>
>------------------------------
>James A. Rebman
>
>Cognitive Levers Project
>Center for Life-Long Learning and Design
>Department of Computer Science
>University of Colorado, Boulder
>
>"In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth while the
learned
>will find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer
exists."
>
>- Eric Hoffer