Empire Hotel (And All That Malarkey)
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Comrades
We have worked for this client for 6 years now...
There is still some visual formatting (images in place of place-holders etc.) and content to add.
As the content and link numbers are so minimal, we have decided against 'skip' links and have also made the decision to stick with a fixed-width layout.
It's only a small site, but would you mind giving it the 'once-over' for any howlers that we might have missed?
(Oh, and by the way... please ignore the Secure Booking pages). I am working with the providers of those pages to encourage them to provide standards-compliant and accessible pages.)
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My book: http://www.transcendingcss.com/
Last edited by Malarkey on 22 Apr 2006 07:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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Looking good, as usual.
The right-hand column collapses beneath the other two when the text is enlarged in IE. No biggie – IE users deserve to be punished, after all.
(I love your wording about browsers, BTW.)
Some of the alt attributes need a little work, I think.
Please make it more obvious which link has focus when tabbing. The default browser outline is all but invisible. Use the :focus pseudo-class (:active for IE) and set a distinctive background colour or something.
Using italic text for body copy may not be such a good idea. Italics are difficult to read on-screen, especially at the tiny default font size. For people with some types of dyslexia, all-italics can make it even more difficult to read.
You also seem to have a strange mix of markup for abbreviations. Some of them are correctly marked up with <abbr>, while others are marked up with <acronym> although I fail to see how they would be pronounced as a word. But maybe E&OE is pronouncable in Welsh?
I don't think you can claim AAA, since there is no evidence of compliance with checkpoints 10.4 and 14.2 (priority 3). You also use a fixed width of 770px, which fails checkpoint 3.4 (priority 2). I couldn't find a site map, which fails checkpoint 13.3 (priority 2). Conclusion: this site is level-A compliant.
You might want to read my blog entry about AAA – false marketing?
The address on the 'About this site' page isn't marked up with <address>.
If you touch up the <acronym>/<abbr> markup, add a :focus/:active rule, work on some of the alt texts, and 'downgrade' to an honest WAI-A compliance, you can call it a day and send the invoice over to your customer. It's a very nice-looking site.
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Thanks Tommy,
You are fast becoming my favourite Swedish code-snifler! I'll work on those details.
First, I agree with you about AAA compliance claims in general (nice blog!).
Now, here's an idea. Let's all stop putting any reference to A, AA or AAA in footers etc. Readers DON'T see it, understand it or sit back and think "This is a worthy site, praise be indeed!" Let's just lead by example and make accessible sites.
Billy Bragg wrote in a song "... and wearing badges is not enough, in days like these..."
Thanks for your keen eye...
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Stuff I do
******************************
Design: http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk
My book: http://www.transcendingcss.com/
Last edited by Malarkey on 12 Jul 2004 09:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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| Malarkey wrote: |
|
Billy Bragg wrote in a song "... and wearing badges is not enough, in days like these..." |
same goes for all those "XHTML/CSS/etc" badges...let's burn them now (he said, making a mental note to remove them from his own http://www.photographia.co.uk later tonight)
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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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| TOOLman wrote: |
| I don't think you can claim AAA, since there is no evidence of compliance with checkpoints 10.4 and 14.2 (priority 3 |
Tommy
How does this site not pass 14.2?
I've always taken 14.2 to be a guard against pages that contain only large amounts of text. This site has the text supplmented by images to show how swanky the hotels rather then just letting you read about it.
How do you interpret 14.2?
As for 10.4, I thought the general opinon was that the user agents this refers to are now ancient history. True, there will always be some who use old software but this will always be the case. I guess we wait for a verdict in WAI2.0?
Cheers all
Kevin
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Brother Malarkey. I appreciate your having to follow instructions from your paymasters, but I have one or two comments about the appearance.
When putting IE6 (on 800 x 600 setting)to larger & largest it screws up appearance by dropping the right hand side underneath. For instance, on the home page the Room types and Restaurant columns sit together but the Special offers drops underneath.
<bee in bonnet>Set to smallest the text is virtually unreadable</bee in bonnet>
The font face being italics, serifed and pseudo written style, will prove difficult for some to read, can you provide an alternative?
The only other thought is about the text/background contrast, looks a bit poor to me in certain parts with Grey on White.
TTFN
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Mike Abbott
Accessible to everyone
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| KLewis wrote: |
|
How do you interpret 14.2? |
that's indeed a tough judgement call. ask 10 experts, and you'll get 11 answers. even http://www.w3.org/... is a bit vague about it.
| Quote: |
| As for 10.4, I thought the general opinon was that the user agents this refers to are now ancient history. |
i think that's indeed the general consensus (even speaking to some people from the W3C at the training session in Madrid, they're of the same view) http://www.accessifyforum.com/...
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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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Just some more muddled thoughts...
@ Tommy: I agree with Kevin that 14.2 does not apply here as the site contains images to illustrate the topics (restaurant - big picture, Snowdonia - big picture). 10.2 also does not apply in practical terms. As for 13.2, interesting point... on a very small site, and when navigation is clear, in context and well structured, a site-map is surely irrelavant to all users.
@ Mikea: I'll take a look at the CSS for the right column, shouldn't be too much of an issue...
"<bee in bonnet>Set to smallest the text is virtually unreadable</bee in bonnet>"
NOW! I finally understand what you've been rambling on about for all these months
Personally (waits for shouts of protest), I think that the point is is that text can be resized to reasonable sizes for magnification. I can't read the text of virtually any web sites at the smallest setting in IE. Infact I've often wondered what it's for...
Is the footer text you are referring to re: grey on white?
Thanks for the input guys.
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Stuff I do
******************************
Design: http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk
My book: http://www.transcendingcss.com/
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| Mikea wrote: |
|
<bee in bonnet>Set to smallest the text is virtually unreadable</bee in bonnet> |
unless i'm mistaken, the only way to avoid this is to never use font sizes below 100% / 1em
that's again the sort of thing where i'm thinking: maybe having two stylesheets, a "designery" and a "high contrast/larger font/etc" one, may be beneficial.
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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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| redux wrote: | ||
that's indeed a tough judgement call. ask 10 experts, and you'll get 11 answers. even http://www.w3.org/... is a bit vague about it. |
I've always thought this to be one of the clearest guidelines. It's non-technical. Maybe that's why the WAI techniques are 'vague'. They must think it's simple too. Perhaps we should tell them!
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| KLewis wrote: |
|
I've always thought this to be one of the clearest guidelines. It's non-technical. |
clear in its language, but vague in its application. with technical requirements, it's easier to give a yes or no in terms of "does this particular page meet these criteria". with this one, however, it comes down almost completely to interpretation of the person assessing the site. it's an almost purely subjective guideline.
_________________
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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| Malarkey wrote: |
| "<bee in bonnet>Set to smallest the text is virtually unreadable</bee in bonnet>"
NOW! I finally understand what you've been rambling on about for all these months Personally (waits for shouts of protest), I think that the point is is that text can be resized to reasonable sizes for magnification. I can't read the text of virtually any web sites at the smallest setting in IE. Infact I've often wondered what it's for...
Is the footer text you are referring to re: grey on white?.. |
To the former, Hooray
(sorry if I was being vague) yes again, however, I use Medium setting and whilst it is adequate for most sites I do like to be able to change it. I am not going to go into a long drawn out discourse on the merits of text re-sizing and reading it in the smallest setting but at Patrick says
| Quote: |
| unless i'm mistaken, the only way to avoid this is to never use font sizes below 100% / 1em |
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Mike Abbott
Accessible to everyone
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| redux wrote: | ||
clear in its language, but vague in its application. with technical requirements, it's easier to give a yes or no in terms of "does this particular page meet these criteria". with this one, however, it comes down almost completely to interpretation of the person assessing the site. it's an almost purely subjective guideline. |
...and there's nothing wrong with that. Are these 'technical requirements'? I'd say they are not. There are some technical solutions to the guidelines. After all the C in WCAG stands for Content not Code (not meaning to sound rude at all)
It is not 'vague in its application'. If you use images (or other media) to supplement your text you are aiding comprehension.
An example: I know more about you (redux) than you know about me. How? You have a personal website (or two...) and you post your photographs there. This tells me that you are a creative guy with a talent for making photos as well. I'd like to think I am too - but you haven't seen my photos?
Cheers
Kevin
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| redux wrote: | ||
unless i'm mistaken, the only way to avoid this is to never use font sizes below 100% / 1em |
Hmm. http://www.ixyl.co.uk/... shows the 5 main web fonts in sizes from 5% to 120%, and for me personally, things only become unreadable at sizes lower than 75%. Setting Malarkey's site to 75% rather than 70% makes everything much more bearable at the smaller setting.
Of course, I'd prefer it if every page used 1em as the base font and only reduced/enlarged for items of lesser importance, but I still think there's a fair amount of leeway for design when you can specify 85% as the basic size and shrink to 75% if needed.
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Kajun
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| Malarkey wrote: |
| First, I agree with you about AAA compliance claims in general (nice blog!).
Now, here's an idea. Let's all stop putting any reference to A, AA or AAA in footers etc. Readers DON'T see it, understand it or sit back and think "This is a worthy site, praise be indeed!" Let's just lead by example and make accessible sites. |
Thanks. You may have noted that I don't have any accessibility badges on my blog ...
I think this information belongs in the accessibility statement, but I don't mind if people put badges or compliance claims in their footers – as long as they are honest about it.
| redux wrote: |
| same goes for all those "XHTML/CSS/etc" badges...let's burn them now |
I think that there is a raison d'être for those, although they don't need to be flashy badges; humble links suffice. It's a convenient way to validate a page. Granted, the one who benefits most is the page author, but I think it's a neat way to validate someone else's page (to see if they live up to their claims) rather than copying the URL, going to the W3C validator, and then pasting the URL.
| KLewis wrote: | ||
Tommy How does this site not pass 14.2? I've always taken 14.2 to be a guard against pages that contain only large amounts of text. This site has the text supplmented by images to show how swanky the hotels rather then just letting you read about it. How do you interpret 14.2? |
Kevin, this is a tricky checkpoint, and as Patrick said, the interpretations differ. Some think that it's enough to put any kind of graphic on the page; others (like myself) are several degrees stricter.
Let's look at the wording:
| Quote: |
| Supplement text with graphic or auditory presentations where they will facilitate comprehension of the page. |
I see this as an aid for those who have difficulties comprehending written text. Severe dyslexic, some profoundly deaf, people with certain types of cognitive disabilities are examples of users who benefit from this.
Adding a photo of a hotel room certainly helps a sighted user get a feel for what the place looks like. It would then, of course, need a longdesc attribute and a detailed description of the photo for the non-sighted audience.
For 14.2, I'm thinking about icons, graphs, sign-language video clips, synthetic speech plugins, ... Anything that adds an extra dimension to the content already on the page, to assist people with different disabilities in digesting the information. Decorative photographs don't count, although those on the front page might.
If you look at the 'About this site' page, there are no graphic or auditory supplements other than the pretty room photos at the bottom, and they don't facilitate comprehension of the main page information.
As I said, it's a matter of interpretation. For a designer of Andy's calibre, I think we can demand a bit more than we'd do from a 13-year-old novice designer.
Summary: AAA is very difficult to achieve, and if you're going to claim AAA compliance, you'd better be prepared to put in a lot of time, energy and money.
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