It does not look good for Target. Web Accessibility news

[Travis Newbury]

I do recall someone (I think it might have been Bergamot) putting
a similar and very reasonable question to old Travis a while
back. Travis disappeared for a while, it was the most silent I
have ever heard him be. I think he might have hurried to a
holiday destination the furthest from any computer likely to have
a connection to a ng.

Provided an example yesterday look for it in this thread.

 

[William Gill]

Dangerous question Andy. If I recall a while back, everyone (not
me) here was saying how easy it was to write good html/css. But
talk about bad non-Flash websites everywhere!

Someone once said "The guitar is easy to play, poorly." That may be why
so many are willing to shell out the bucks to hear it played well.

As I once told a boss, "If this job was easy, you wouldn't need me.",
and I told a peer "If everyone was as smart as you, what would make you
so special?"

Having managed some very gifted individuals, I learned it is sometimes
difficult to maintain a line between instilling pride, and discouraging
arrogance.

 

[Ben C]

Karl Groves wrote: [...]
It's painful to access many sites, it's true. But Google is fine. Some
sites have good mobile versions--Yahoo and the Washington Post, for
example. The downloadable version of Google Maps for Windows Mobile,
which pulls live data from the Internet, works really nicely on the
Treo. Wikipedia--with several skins available, I'm surprised one hasn't
been designed specifically for handheld devices, but in any event it
works well in IE on Windows Mobile when I set it to use One Column mode.
So I never have to wait till I get home or to the office to look stuff up.

As more people start to browse the web on phones (for which it has to
become a bit cheaper, but it will) designers will start testing their
sites more on phone browsers and it will all start to work better.

There is also the argument that in Europe people like to talk to their
friends on their phones, not play games, watch cartoons, or browse the
web. But this argument now falls down as people have started using the
web mainly to talk to their (so-called) friends anyway.

 

[Travis Newbury]

As a website operator, I like making money. I like making money more
than I like pizazz. So I'll stick with primarily textual sites.

Making money sometimes requires pizazz. Would you use Flash if it
made you more money?

I work in the Entertainment and Education/Training world. Plain-ol-
text doesn't cut it there. Flash is currently the most popular method
for producing educational CBTs and WBTs. The reason for this is based
on the way people learn. Flash is also the fastest growing media
provider on the web. I think you would be hard pressed to find any
mainstream entertainment site (TV, Movie, Music, sports including
personallity sites) that does not take advantage of Flash.

Also, Flash and accessibility are not mutually exclusive. Neither are
search engines and Flash. The problem is that most older Flash out
there was garbage and has given Flash a bad name. Evidence of this is
the completely silly things people in this forum say about Flash.

Most people (experts?) in this group haven't a clue what you can do
with Flash. When ever I hear someone saying how bloated, inaccessible,
and useless it is, I know they haven't a clue and are either basing
their opinion on something they remember from years ago, or they just
mindlessly mimic what every they here the ignorant say about Flash not
using their own brain at all. (A lot of that here)

Flash, multimedia, and the web are a marriage made in heaven.

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:45:00 GMT
Mark Goodge scribed:

But it's important to
remember that one of the reason these sites are impressive, and win
awards, is because they are a departure from the norm. They bear as
much relationship to everyday web design as my grandfather's prize
marrows do to supermarket greengroceries.

Eh? Your grandfather grows edible bone innards?? What next...

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:19:41 GMT
G scribed:

because some websites are being designed by someone other than Spacey?

html is also wonderful and easy to produce, and there are millions upon
millions of shitty sites

seriously

a saw in the hands of a carpenter can produce some wonderful results.
put the same tool in the hands of an accountant.

hmm

The perfect resource-conserving paper-shredder!

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:48:09 GMT
Andy Dingley scribed:

Example please.

Followed by a compulsory education program for the multitude of Flash
coders who don't appreciate this.


If Flash is so wonderful and so easy to produce, wwhy is so much of it
so bad?

Probably because it's _not_ that easy to produce and only argumentally
possible in the first place. In one of his more lucid moments, Onideus
sent me to some url (probably Adobe) which had stuff on how to make Flash
"entities". I got dizzy just looking at it. Sure, maybe if I were a kid
just starting out, I might "jump into the fray" so to speak, but it isn't
simple by any means. Furthermore, it's still proprietary no matter how you
sugar-coat it.

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:58:45 GMT
Harlan Messinger scribed:

Twenty years ago most people probably wouldn't have believed the amount
of money we spend each month for cell phones instead of just using a pay
phone or waiting till we got home, or that we'd spend US$400 on a device
to carry music around with us instead of just carrying a pocket radio.

Twenty years ago, the 20-year-old dollars spent on a typical home phone
package was actually more than the current dollars spent on a typical
economy-rate country-wide-calling cell phone today.

 

[Travis Newbury]

Do we?

I do

 

[Travis Newbury]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript:
With ActionScript 2.0...

We don't use AS2 any more...

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Provided an example yesterday look for it in this thread.

URL? Id didn't see it in any of the postings....

 

[Travis Newbury]

How come I don't know a single person who does this? Sure, be as
cruel as you like... <g>

When someone is confronted with beauty such as yours they tend to get
intimidates and run away. Maybe that is why?

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:09:04
GMT Karl Groves scribed:

I don't, either. Further, I think "...have browsed the Internet..."
is probably a bit deceiving. As soon as I found out my phone could
access the web, I tried it. It was so painful an experience, I've
never done it again.

Excuse me for being a bit unknowing since I don't have a cell phone, don't
plan to get one, and never have used one for the Net, but despite how the
site renders, isn't it just a little hard to operate said phone in said
mode with all them little buttons and such? The few times I've used
someone's phone for a call, I've experienced problems with the buttons
reacting to pushing, just hitting the right button you want, and other
micro-anomolia like that.

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:00:16
GMT William Gill scribed:

I won't argue, frivolous lawsuits are a serious problem, and I know
this is anecdotal, but to bolster your point here's a first hand
experience (sans a lot of gory details). After I became disabled, a
multinational did something to me and every other disabled employee
that was patently illegal. When I pursued legal remedy I was told
more than once, "they can't do that, but your case will take lots of
work, will not produce piles of money or big headlines, so we can't
help you."

Unfortunately, as with most serious problems, there is no single
simple solution.

Actually, I think there is.

Does an attorney, like anyone else, deserve to be paid for his work? Of
course. Does he deserve to be paid well? Well, probably, but "doing a
good job" comes into it. Does he deserve to be paid well enough to
compensate for the times he is not paid so well, including "the losers",
so to speak. Mmm, somewhat - the key being "within reason". Certainly
anyone in any profession has good and bad times. Now here comes the
killer - does he deserve a windfall based on his client's
pseudo-windfall? (ie: "I get a third.") Absolutely NOT. Simple. A
_reasonable_ bonus perhaps, but something like $20M+ for less than
one-man-year's worth of work is not what I consider equitable.

Of course, there are some so-called "sports" jocks making more. "The
ignorance of The People knows no bounds."

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme

Now, I just have to get her

Try getting her on IE7 as a stepping? No, maybe not, it may seem
even better than IE6 to her and that will that!

No, IE7 conflicts with one of her faxing/scanning/copying toolbars. I'm
gradually introducing Firefox - Opera is just too much for her (at this
point).

Here in Australia, it is not cheap to enable internet on the
mobile phone. I have an internet capable phone but cannot think
of any reason to get it online. I even prefer texting people via
my desktop rather than fiddle with the tiny buttons.

I did load some bits of sites of my own via the usb for off line
viewing and it sort of works but is a very poor experience. I
guess I have a crappy phone. But what you are saying does reminds
me to look into things a bit. But I just don't believe the 28%
figure and I don't know what it means anyway, how the
measurements are made. I suspect there is a lot of hollowness in
the interpretation.

You can always use a phone simulator like Openwave
<http://developer.openwave.com/dvl/> . It acts just like my Nokia
phone, and I can test things on my local machine, without the cost of
the phone.

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Neredbojias

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 06 Oct 2007
12:09:04 GMT Karl Groves scribed:



Excuse me for being a bit unknowing since I don't have a cell phone,
don't plan to get one, and never have used one for the Net, but
despite how the site renders, isn't it just a little hard to operate
said phone in said mode with all them little buttons and such? The
few times I've used someone's phone for a call, I've experienced
problems with the buttons reacting to pushing, just hitting the right
button you want, and other micro-anomolia like that.

You can use the Openwave Phone Simulator available at
http://developer.openwave.com/dvl/ . Then you don't have to get one,
just test with this.

 

[Mark Goodge]

Making money sometimes requires pizazz. Would you use Flash if it
made you more money?

Yes, but I have come across no situations where it would. Can you give
examples of Flash-built sites which are primary money earners?

I work in the Entertainment and Education/Training world. Plain-ol-
text doesn't cut it there. Flash is currently the most popular method
for producing educational CBTs and WBTs.

Not in my field. What's your specialisation?

The reason for this is based
on the way people learn. Flash is also the fastest growing media
provider on the web. I think you would be hard pressed to find any
mainstream entertainment site (TV, Movie, Music, sports including
personallity sites) that does not take advantage of Flash.

So? No-one is saying there's anything wrong with using Flash
appropriately. Just like there's nothing wring with using jpegs
appropriately. But that doesn't make it appropriate to present a
website as nothing but jpegs, and it doesn't make it appropriate to
present a website as nothing but Flash.

Also, Flash and accessibility are not mutually exclusive. Neither are
search engines and Flash. The problem is that most older Flash out
there was garbage and has given Flash a bad name. Evidence of this is
the completely silly things people in this forum say about Flash.

Show us a site that is built entirely in Flash and is also accessible
to screen readers and indexable by search engines, then. Just a URL
will do, thanks.

Most people (experts?) in this group haven't a clue what you can do
with Flash.

That may possibly be true. Just like it's true that most Flash
designers don't have a clue what you can do with HTML, CSS and maybe
some Javascript thrown in to add interest.

When ever I hear someone saying how bloated, inaccessible,
and useless it is, I know they haven't a clue and are either basing
their opinion on something they remember from years ago, or they just
mindlessly mimic what every they here the ignorant say about Flash not
using their own brain at all. (A lot of that here)

So show us something different then. Let's see a website built
entirely in Flash that has a smaller footprint and is more accessible
than it would have been if written using HTML. Your call.

Mark

 

[Mark Goodge]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:45:00 GMT
Mark Goodge scribed:



Eh? Your grandfather grows edible bone innards?? What next...

That would be green squash, to you. Commonly used in vegetable growing
competitions in the UK.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/giants/msg1101403219162.html

Mark

 

[Phil Payne]

Just to wind a few up a bit more - from today's "Register":

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/10/05/linux_mobile_choice/

"The key development here is that smart mobile devices - and this
increasingly means cellphones - will become the primary method of
accessing the Web. This will mean an explosion of new applications
specifically tailored to mobile devices."

 

[Ben C]

Excuse me for being a bit unknowing since I don't have a cell phone, don't
plan to get one, and never have used one for the Net, but despite how the
site renders, isn't it just a little hard to operate said phone in said
mode with all them little buttons and such?

They have those pens you drag across the screen, like playing a Nintendo
DS. Easier than using a mouse.