Folks have been asking how my NCAA brackets are going, since I used web
accessibility (in part) to inform my NCAA brackets this year. Well, I'm
pleased to report that this approach to bracketology has been amazingly
successful - I'm currently in the 92nd percentile of the ESPN challenge,
en route to the $10K prize.

The positive correlation between accessible home page design and
strength of men's basketball team is incredibly strong! So, for those of
you who are placing last minute bets, here are some tips...

Marquette has an interesting-looking home page (www.marquette.edu), but
has critical images with either non-equivalent alt text (the "student"
banner) or no alt text all (the NCAA graphic in the lower right).
Contrast that with www.ukans.edu where they have alt text on all
graphics but one, scalable fonts throughout, an invisible "skip
navigation" link, and a visible "toggle navigation" link in the upper
right that cleans the interface up for everybody.

Pretty clear from this who's going to the championship game from the
first matchup.

As for the second game, both www.syracuse.edu and www.utexas.edu provide
alt text on graphics pretty consistently, but both use tiny non-scalable
fonts so they're difficult to read for anyone with less than 20/20
vision. Also, both have mouseover menus that are not accessible with
keyboard. This has the makings of a very close game, but Texas will win
because they do have an invisible "Skip Navigation" link, as well as a
link at the bottom of the page to their Accessibility Policy.

So, who will prevail when the Jayhawks meet the Longhorns on Monday
night?

Hard to argue with scalable fonts and that "universal design"-influenced
"toggle navigation" link. My money's on Kansas to cut down those nets in
New Orleans.

Terry Thompson
AccessIT/DO-IT
The University of Washington
Email: [log in to unmask]
Voice: 206-221-4168
TTY: 206-685-3648
Fax: 206-221-4171
www.washington.edu/accessit
www.washington.edu/doit