Rolling Rampage
| Isofarro wrote: |
| This is a bogus argument - I've already pointed to a bookmarklet that does the same thing for other browsers and this bookmarklet can be dropped on a quick link toolbar so that its only one click away, just like Opera. |
I had considered your suggestion when I wrote my response. Just like someone using IE can disable images and disable JavaScript, neither options are one or two clicks away - these options are buried in the menus. Your bookmarklet may provide a one click option to disable stylesheets but is it built into IE, no, it must be downloaded (and installed? or does that happen automatically). If it must be downloaded, is it an MS add-on to IE or must it be searched for?
Both my father and father-in-law have been using personal computers for about 3 years but I suggest to you that if I mentioned the word bookmarklet to them, I would get a questioning response. Certainly, many features built in to an application may not be used much --- I would think that newbie Opera users may not know about the disable stylesheets option --- however, I think that internal features are much more available than add-ons.
It was because of the additional steps involved in downloading (and installing?) the bookmarklet that I felt that the disable stylesheets option in native-Opera is much more available vs. native-IE.
Jules
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| joeclark wrote: |
| As usual, an entire site is dismissed if it's missing the single dealbreaker feature that cantankerous critics demand. |
Actually I thought it was an excellent example of an AA bordering on AAA site and felt that the site was a couple of tweaks away, in my books, from perfect. Some of the issues I raised were personal preferences, the only one I would stand on is the contrast issue with the background image (a background color could easily clear up the contrast if no images were loaded).
Jules
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| Jules wrote: |
| Certainly, many features built in to an application may not be used much --- I would think that newbie Opera users may not know about the disable stylesheets option |
not to sound like a broken record, but again: the onus is also on the user, knowing what tools to use and how...
| Quote: |
| It was because of the additional steps involved in downloading (and installing?) the bookmarklet that I felt that the disable stylesheets option in native-Opera is much more available vs. native-IE. |
and that's why a user that may have some form of disability and may require certain features (making text bigger, disabling styling, etc) should look towards the right tools for the right job. if we code our pages to standards, and a large number of alternative browsers do support them as they were intended, then it's the fault of the software developers distributing their non-compliant and feature-poor browser if certain tasks are difficult to carry out with it.
my GBP0.02, anyhow
Patrick H. Lauke / webmaster / University of Salford
co-lead: WaSP Accesibility Task Force
take it to the streets ... WaSP Street Team
personal: splintered | photographia | redux
co-author: Web Accessibility - Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance
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| Isofarro wrote: | ||
Until browsers have it closer to hand, use a disable stylesheet bookmarklet. This works on quite a few moden browsers. After you've bookmarket it, just copy it over to your quick toolbar. |
I believe that the fact you had to say that to Mike shows it is not really very accessible. Most users would not be able to ask that question and get that link, they would just find the site inaccessible.
I think it's text-book accessible but not real-world accessible.
Cheers,
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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| joeclark wrote: |
| Relax, people. The event the Rolling Rampage site is advertising is four months away. That gives Michael rather a lot of time to add a stylesheet-switcher and a few other desirable features.
As usual, an entire site is dismissed if it's missing the single dealbreaker feature that cantankerous critics demand. |
I don't see this site being dismissed here. I'm certainly not dismissing it or I wouldn't have started this thread. I think it's a great site both technically and visually, and because of this it's worth examining any accessibility floors in it in order to improve the site.
Cheers,
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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| mdClarke wrote: |
| Well, I wrote it and I thank you all for your input.
Joe Clarke had already mentioned the "text over picture" and contrast issues and had suggested a stylesheet-switcher as a solution. With that and the responses here I have pulled my thumb out and added one. Any suggestions as to the most useful colour schemes would be appreciated. As to the fixed width/height, it's serving in 3 different resolutions at the moment (640, 800, and 1024) with the layout blocked out by divs and fixed in place with absolute positioning. Done because I like it that way and because that background will look awful if I start to float things out to different widths. As a solution I'm tending towards adding 1280 as a supported resolution and then floating the whole thing to the center of any other resolutions. As with the first issue any other suggestions/solutions that preserve the original look would be appreciated. Thanks MC |
Hi MC,
Thanks for stopping by and congrats on a great site.
I think the stylesheet switcher is a good addition and does the job very well. Great job.
The only suggestion I would make is that you could give it a solid background color that would make it more noticable/readable while not interfeering too much more with the design.
Cheers,
Nigel
Accessify Forum Administrator ~ Nigel Peck / MIS Web Design
"Everything I say is not meant to be set in stone" - Van Morrison
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| Isofarro wrote: |
| I've received a few emails from people working with visually disabled people, and the common fact that gets mentioned is that visually disabled people tend to surf the web with font-sizes at least 240% bigger than the default. |
Isofarro -- quick question -- I'm curious to know if the 240% figure was purely anecdotal, or if there was an actual published study on font sizes used by people with visual impairments? If anecdotal, I'm curious to know if it was based on a small or large sample? Or perhaps was it because the person working with them suggested that size, or configured the user agent's text size for them?
feather.
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The accesskeys defined in the menu, do screw around with thise defined by a several UA's. A great example of the danger of accesskeys.
Anyone noticed this?
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The style switcher still leaves something to be desired...
| Code: |
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<a id="cont" href="#" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('HCStyle'); return false;"> |
Should be something like -
| Code: |
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<a id="cont" href="switcher.py?HCStyle" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('HCStyle'); return false;" onkeypress="setActiveStyleSheet('HCStyle'); return false;"> |
Although, you can attach the events in the head to save bandwidth and keep your markup cleaner. The function also has to check which key was pressed to make sure they aren't just tabbing through.
You also might want to add the page URL to the href too. I rely on referer but that probably isn't a really good thing to be doing either since it's possible the UA doesn't send it.
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| Jules wrote: |
| Both my father and father-in-law have been using personal computers for about 3 years but I suggest to you that if I mentioned the word bookmarklet to them, I would get a questioning response. |
Does your father and father-in-law require an explanation of the technology and code behind the back button before he is capable of using it? I don't think so. So what's the problem in you adding the button to the toolbar and then instructing your father and father-in-law on when to use it. It would be identical to teachning them what the browser's back button does. And Print button. And refresh button. And home button.
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| Nigel Peck wrote: |
| I believe that the fact you had to say that to Mike shows it is not really very accessible. Most users would not be able to ask that question and get that link, they would just find the site inaccessible. |
That's like saying its an accessibility problem if a sufficiently-sighted person decides to read a book with his eyes closed!
Accessibility is about making allowances for characteristics a person cannot readily change. Its about empowering readers, not about pandering to readers tastes and preferences.
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| feather wrote: | ||
Isofarro -- quick question -- I'm curious to know if the 240% figure was purely anecdotal, or if there was an actual published study on font sizes used by people with visual impairments? If anecdotal, I'm curious to know if it was based on a small or large sample? |
Anecdotal from two independant sources (as far as I am aware). The first came via my comments page:
| Quote: |
| The other 80% have severe visual impairment but many of these do LOOK at the screen (up close). One thing they do is ramp up the font sizes on their browsers. In all the re-designs I've seen, using a 36pt font gets the text overlapping apart from on the RNIB site. |
The second mention was in an email from a lady working with a UK charity providing assistive technology - I've rechecked my inbox to confirm the figured - and the concern over my RNIB redesign is that the "things start to go "squiffy" at around 150% magnification."
So not 240%, but I have an underlying suspiscion that 150% magnification is still below usable text size for a fair number of people.
Two independant mentions of exceptional font-sizing from people who either work with or know of visually disabled people using the web.
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I'm going to jump in here late and say I agree with Nigel on this one. The first thing that jumped out at me is the low contrast in the leftnav and the main text. There is really no reason not to make it white text in both cases and solve the entire problem. As it is, I would say that the site is not "accessible", mainly to users with poor contrast vision.
But lets remember that almost every "disability" has a real-world technological or circumstantial counterpart. Sure, you can blame someone with a crappy monitor more than someone with poor vision, but it doesn't make the site work any better for either of those people.
Let me share a similar experience I had. I had a site in which I knowingly had low contrast text on a black background, because I wanted it to be "dark" and match the color pallette I had. My monitor is really bright even on low brightness settings, so of course it looked fine to me. I got some complaints and I lightened it up a bit. I saw it looked dark on a few monitors and I lightened it a bit more. Well a year later (in a usability course), I go to check it at one of their kiosks and I could not even see the text!!! I went home and lightened the text as much as possible that night and checked it the next day and it was visible and readable. In the end, the design really looked no worse, IMO. And it was more usable/accessible to a larger audience.
The fact that CSS can be disabled, text can be resized, or JavaScript can be disabled does not mean that you can abuse or misuse them and still be accessible. It's the proper/responsible use of them that make sites more usable and/or degradable.
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| dgibson wrote: |
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The fact that CSS can be disabled, text can be resized, or JavaScript can be disabled does not mean that you can abuse or misuse them and still be accessible. |
actually, it does, in my oh so humble opinion. provided that you're offering an alternative (and an easy way to get to this alternative, e.g. a clearly defined link at the top of your page to a "high contrast" version, for instance - which can be the same page, but with a different stylesheet - or a switcher) than you should be fine. yes, in an ideal world you'd make a single, universal design...but as the visual aspect of (web) design is an almost exclusively subjective area, it's a difficult call. in terms of discrimination, to veer off the subject slightly, you could say that all users are disadvantaged the same way by bad design decisions, not just those with a disability
this reminds me a bit of the "let's just compromise to the lowest common denominator" idea (ok, i'm taking the argument to extremes, as we're only talking about some contrast issue really, but nonetheless). should the integrity or essence of a visual design be compromised to make it accessible to all (a myth, at best) 'out of the box', or is it reasonable to allow designers short flights of fancy, provided that they ensure that it's easy to override those if the user so wishes ?
should microsoft windows install by default with 640x480 and high contrast, big font scheme, or can it install with a fairly high resolution and candy colours, but offer the user the option to switch to something more suitable to their needs ?
questions, questions...
Patrick H. Lauke / webmaster / University of Salford
co-lead: WaSP Accesibility Task Force
take it to the streets ... WaSP Street Team
personal: splintered | photographia | redux
co-author: Web Accessibility - Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance
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I don't know if this was already mentioned, but in the article, the Rolling Rampage link refers to http://www.rollingrampage.com/main.html which is a broken link--it ought to be http://www.rollingrampage.com/main.php. Please fix that, and thanks.
[J]ona
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