Hi Kelly,

Curtis Chung is the VP in computer Science for the NFB and probably is the
person to whom questions about their web site should be directed.

He has a link on the NFB site.  As a matter of fact, he has posted
guidelines on how to make web sites accessable to the blind!!!

Charlie

At 05:31 AM 2/20/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>I sent this earlier to some other internet forums.  My point in bringing it
>here is not to engage in federation bashing.  However as someone who's
>worked extensively on web accessibility I am disappointed to see an
>organization of people who are blind involved with a web site that has some
>decidedly inaccessible elements when you delve into it.  I am posting this
>here for informational purposes.
>
>The National Federation of the Blind, who's main web page can be found at
>
>http://www.nfb.org
>
>appears to have entered into some sort of financial arrangement with an
>online shopping site called Greater Good.  The basic deal, as near as I
>can tell, is that an organization links to the Greater Good web site and
>then gets a cut (typically five percent) of any sales made from people who
>shop via a path leading from that initial link.
>
>The NFB's version of the Greater Good web site can be found at:
>
>http://www.nfb.greatergood.com
>
>Personally I think that online shopping has the potential to be a very
>positive thing for people who are blind.  However, I find it disappointing
>to say the least, that the NFB would get involved with a web site that in
>many cases goes against the practices of accessible web design.
>
>Both the Greater Good web site and many of the stores linked off the
>initial page are filled with images and imagemaps that lack alt-tags.
>Further where frames are used they often have very uninformative titles
>such as "top" and "middle" and in many cases lack any title at all.
>
>As an example, try exploring the jcrew.com store linked off the initial
>page.  The first thing you encounter is a frame titled "top" which is
>filled with the most cryptic URLs one can imagine.
>
>Also follow the "Electronics" link from the first shopping page.  In
>addition to a repeat of many of the general categories, you'll find links
>to a few products plus links lacking alt-tags.  If you are blind you have
>to guess where these untagged links go because the underlying URLs are
>again a mysterious mix of dots, slashes and other assorted punctuation.
>
>The problems with this online shopping site are nothing out of the
>ordinary when it comes to web accessibility.  But I find it quite
>disappointing that a consumer organization that claims to be concerned
>with issues faced by people who are blind would seek to profit from such
>inaccessible web sites.
>
>Greater Good lists the email of
>
>[log in to unmask]
>
>for contacts.  I am not a member of the NFB so do not know who within that
>organization to mention this issue to.  If anyone knows who's responsible
>for the federation involvement with this web site it would be interesting
>to know what reasoning was used to at the very least passively endorse
>inaccessible web design by getting involved with Greater Good.
>
>Kelly
>
>
>VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
>To join or leave the list, send a message to
>[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
>"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
> VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
>http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
>
>
>


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html