It does not look good for Target. Web Accessibility news

[Jonathan N. Little]

Phil Payne wrote:

Wow! At a download rate that oscillated between 5.1-5.2kb/sec, pretty
much the max on dialup, I got to watch an inane gyrating atom thingy for
2min 15sec! Then it improved to a BLACK screen with a small line of
teeny writing for 40 secs when finally a little boy showed up! Wow again
3 minuets of pure heart-stopping entertainment only to be rewarded with
with this graphic with writing that looks about 8 pixels high on *a
curve* that I cannot change at all.... I guess the dark grey text on
black at the bottom at a generous 10 pixels high, that I also cannot
adjust, is supposed to help! The whole this sits in a static 700 pixels
rectangle...oooh.

I had to boot up the old ThinkPad Transnote - 600MHz Pentium on Talk-
talk broadband. Only took around thirty seconds to get going here.

It is not really about processor speed (unless your using an old 486)
but connection speed. Yours was broadband. My point is not everyone
'has|can have|will have in the near future' access to broadband.

 

[Ben C]

There is a formal process to managing projects, just like there is for a
lot of things. And it works. But when you've never used this process,
you can come up with all kinds of rationalizations as to why it won't work.

But apparently when you have used it you can't come up with any as to
why it does.

 

[Phil Payne]

It is not really about processor speed (unless your using an old 486)

but connection speed. Yours was broadband. My point is not everyone
'has|can have|will have in the near future' access to broadband.

But even on broadband - 30 seconds?

Most users have MUCH shorter fuses and would long since have clicked
away.

 

[SpaceGirl]

I had to boot up the old ThinkPad Transnote - 600MHz Pentium on Talk-
talk broadband. Only took around thirty seconds to get going here.

Couldn't find the no-mouse or audio substitution support.

For a 3d environment? Are you kidding? You think you can play xbox games
without a joypad?

Flash is just one presentational layer. In this case I was trying to
demonstrate that even alternative UIs, such as 3D or audio, are easily
achieved. There's no way to do this sort of thing in HTML + JS. If there
is a requirement to present the content via other UIs, then you do it.
It's not a big deal. I'm bemused by the all or nothing attitude some
folks have in here.




--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

http://www.northleithmill.com

-.-

Kammy has a new home: http://www.bitesizedjapan.com

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

But even on broadband - 30 seconds?

Most users have MUCH shorter fuses and would long since have clicked
away.

Ohhhh! I see your point. Sorry dialup-mindset. Sometimes I *wish* a page
loaded in 30 seconds!

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

For a 3d environment? Are you kidding? You think you can play xbox games
without a joypad?

Flash is just one presentational layer. In this case I was trying to
demonstrate that even alternative UIs, such as 3D or audio, are easily
achieved. There's no way to do this sort of thing in HTML + JS. If there
is a requirement to present the content via other UIs, then you do it.
It's not a big deal. I'm bemused by the all or nothing attitude some
folks have in here.

The point is it has limited practical application. I would hate to
browse eBay in a virtual 3-d shopping buddy regardless of the connection
speed. Flash is just not the "bee's knees" for everything.

 

[SpaceGirl]

Wow! At a download rate that oscillated between 5.1-5.2kb/sec, pretty
much the max on dialup, I got to watch an inane gyrating atom thingy for
2min 15sec! Then it improved to a BLACK screen with a small line of
teeny writing for 40 secs when finally a little boy showed up! Wow again
3 minuets of pure heart-stopping entertainment only to be rewarded with
with this graphic with writing that looks about 8 pixels high on *a
curve* that I cannot change at all.... I guess the dark grey text on
black at the bottom at a generous 10 pixels high, that I also cannot
adjust, is supposed to help! The whole this sits in a static 700 pixels
rectangle...oooh.

Sorry, all "flash" no guts. I'm sorry but after the gee-factor wears
off, this would be very frustrating experience if you are trying to get
any info from such a site. It is kind of like those themes for Windows
that at added animations, noises and fancy screensavers to your PC. Cute
for the moment but if you actually did work on your PC, well...

The problem is both you and Travis have miss the point. It is no how
small the initial script is, (I showed how small a Perl script can be),
but how small the end product that downloads that's important. AND
whether or not it can be usable to the "user"!

I was trying to show to a tech demo of the sort of things that can be
done, but I guess you're unwilling to open your eyes. You've decided
that Flash is bad, and won't hear otherwise. It's very sad, really.

We live in a multimedia world. The WWW is changing every day, and we're
moving further away from the flat page metaphor for describing
information. Flash is just one technology that enables this.

Web sites are about communicating. There is no one "official" way to do
this. Something delivered via the WWW can be in whatever form works best
for your audience. I wouldn't, for example, dream of advocating Flash to
replace Google.com - it's perfectly possible (for the most) to do it,
but it's the wrong medium / wrong tool for the job.

I don't mean the following in a patronizing or mean way, but, open your
eyes; if you're a design actually spend some time using Flash. Don't dis
Flash because of your own closed-mindedness.

I'm working on a Magazine project at the moment - the magazine is Flash
based. It provides a very fluid, easy to read layout, with lots of
visual content. We're also providing an HTML view of the magazine and
XML/RSS feeds. The best technologies for job:

Flash: enables a layout just like a printed magazine
HTML: provides all of the content for people without flash, small
screens, screen readers and search engines
XML/RSS: provides content for news and blog engines

It would be stupid to rely purely on Flash. Going back to the site I
posted; it was a demonstration of the sorts of things that could be
done, not a commercial site. If it were commercial, I'd expect all of
the content to be available in some other form (regardless of legal
requirements).

I think sometimes this is more to do with people being afraid of
technology they don't understand; I remember when I first picked up
Flash and I was horrified by it. I'm NOT a programmer. The last thing I
wanted to do was to stray from PhotoShop+DreamWeaver+CSS+little bits of
JS. I used to dis Flash a lot, until I realised it was just another
fantastic tool in my box of tricks for building great web sites.

Okay, lastly. You're a narrowband user, right? Unfortunately you've been
left behind. It's a sad state, but it's how technology works - you
cannot expect technology to stand still because you have. Doesn't matter
if it's your fault that you are narrowband or otherwise - technology
will always leave you behind. There are MANY sites online now that will
not work on narrowband connections. Some of the worlds most popular
sites almost require broadband these days. An example would be something
like YouTube. Pretty much useless if you don't have Flash installed or
you only have a narrowband connection. It's the nature of its multimedia
content. We'll only see more and more like this; less content for
out-dated users. It's almost impossible to design sites that work on
everyones computers these days - when folks demand multimedia and more
and more innovative ways to describing content. You also have to ask, is
it something we should even be doing? The WWW is so utterly huge, and so
utterly international, it's a virtually impossible task. Focusing on
your audience's needs, and the capabilities of *their* technology makes
far more sense. An example would be the far east, in particular Japan,
where pretty much everyone is broadband, and almost all commercial sites
are heavily Flashed. Serve up low-media text sites there and watch your
site sink without a trace.

So, okay to conclude my ramble

Flash is not intrinsically good/bad.

Just because Flash is technically superior at some things doesn't mean
it should be used for everything.

Treating everyone on the WWW the same is a Bad Thing.

Accessibility is a buzzword. It shouldn't be used as an excuse not to
explore different ways of presenting your content.




--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

http://www.northleithmill.com

-.-

Kammy has a new home: http://www.bitesizedjapan.com

 

[SpaceGirl]

And so a potential sale goes elsewhere while you sleep.

Or you loose a client because you didn't interested them?

--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

http://www.northleithmill.com

-.-

Kammy has a new home: http://www.bitesizedjapan.com

 

[Ben C]

I was trying to show to a tech demo of the sort of things that can be
done.

The demo is cool. How does Java3D compare to Flash for that sort of
thing?

[...]

We live in a multimedia world. The WWW is changing every day, and
we're moving further away from the flat page metaphor for describing
information.

The www _is_ changing every day, but at the moment I think, in the
opposite direction.

More and more sites now seem to be favouring cleaner designs with quite
a lot of readable text on them.

Perhaps SEO is part of the reason, perhaps also people are reaching for
the TV or the PlayStation instead if they want video or 3D and using the
web more for information.

[...]

Web sites are about communicating. There is no one "official" way to
do this. Something delivered via the WWW can be in whatever form works
best for your audience. I wouldn't, for example, dream of advocating
Flash to replace Google.com - it's perfectly possible (for the most)
to do it, but it's the wrong medium / wrong tool for the job.

Have you seen http://www.kartoo.com?

 

[SpaceGirl]

The demo is cool. How does Java3D compare to Flash for that sort of
thing?

J3D requires Java... which is around 60Mb, vs. Flash which is about 3Mb
Java is a VERY bloated tool, but in theory can do a lot more.
However, it's really unstable inside a browser

The www _is_ changing every day, but at the moment I think, in the
opposite direction.

More and more sites now seem to be favouring cleaner designs with quite
a lot of readable text on them.

I disagree. I think what we are seeing is more audience focused designs,
and the correct tools being used.

Perhaps SEO is part of the reason, perhaps also people are reaching for
the TV or the PlayStation instead if they want video or 3D and using the
web more for information.

Could be, but I think we really are on the cusp of change for the way we
really use the WWW. Flat pages dated. I don't mean that everything is
going to become fancy and 3D

Have you seen http://www.kartoo.com?

Yep.

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
# this post (c) Miranda Thomas 2006
# explicitly no permission given to Forum4Designers
# to duplicate this post.

 

[SpaceGirl]

Ben C wrote: [...]
I can believe you in theory, but I've never actually seen any good OO
programming, and lot of bad OO programming. Where does this training
come from? Who has this experience?
For one thing, I've been doing OO design for around 20 years, 17 of
those as a consultant. I've been on some projects which have good
designs, and managed OO projects. Also, I've taught several OOAD
courses to various organizations.

The experience is in some corporations. I have been brought in as a
consultant when they don't have that experience, to help them along.
Some I train, some already have been trained but no experience.

You're not going to get it out of a library book. This is something
you need to do hands on, with experienced designers.

No disrespect, but this kind of talk isn't winning me over.

I'm not trying to win you over. I'm stating the facts. You can't learn
to play golf from a book, either. And you can't learn it by watching
videos of Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer. You need to get out and do it.
And to do it right, you need classes and private tutoring.

[...]

OO can encourage people to make too many design decisions up-front,
before they really know what they want to do yet.

Good design (not just OO) dictates that your decisions MUST be made
up front.
For houses, yes, not for programs.

Nope, the same it true for programs. Otherwise those programs become
a mess of fixes, half-assed patches and other such stuff.

Not true.

Wrong answer. I've seen it too many time.

The other option is to waste a lot of time completely rewriting code
from scratch.

No-one's arguing for spaghetti here. Everyone wants a well-structured
program at the end that does the right thing and is easy to maintain.
But how do you get there?

A proper design. Either structured or OO work will. But the design is
all important.

There are no easy answers. OO and design up-front have plenty of
problems too. The most obvious is committing to the wrong design too
early because at the time of making the design the problem was not
properly understood (however much everyone may have claimed they
understood it).

A good design resolves most problems. And you are *much less* committed
to a design that's on paper than you are if you're written thousands of
lines of code.

But that is also part of project management. Ensuring the problem is
properly understood by all parties. And all parties agree to it.

It's a practice I learned over 20 years ago while working for IBM. And
it works.

In my experience many people believe they are more able to plan ahead
than they actually are. Especially when they are put under pressure to
produce professional-looking designs and plans.

And my experience is people believe they can write code even though they
don't understand the problem.

They can. But they're not writing productive code.

Generalizations like that aren't helpful. If you insist on a doc, or a
design, or a plan, then most people will produce them in order to make
you shut up. They won't necessarily be any use though.

Yes, I insist on a design. And I use that design.

You've obviously never been on a project with > 100 programmers for over
two years. Or even one with a 3-4 programmers for six months to a year.

There is a formal process to managing projects, just like there is for a
lot of things. And it works. But when you've never used this process,
you can come up with all kinds of rationalizations as to why it won't work.

This is all very nice, but what about RAD? Or Agile? And how does this
apply to small enclosed languages like AS3.


--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
# this post (c) Miranda Thomas 2006
# explicitly no permission given to Forum4Designers
# to duplicate this post.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Or you loose a client because you didn't interested them?

Maybe, depends on how you do it and what you are selling. Flash won't
sell everything. Content is important.

 

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

I know I laughed uncontrollably at the popups that came up on
*every* page.

Popups? I saw one on the menu page, and only the first time I
visited it. After that, none.

 

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

Here's a great example:

http://dev.getoutsmart.com/os3d/demos/videoroom/

Entire 3d engine, with UI's projected onto the walls and a character
than can walk around. Under 100Kb, created in Flex, which is Adobe's
tool for generating Flash on the fly.

Cute.

Note the working calendar,

For what definition of"working"? It (like everything else) was too
small for me to read.

The navigation is not intuitive. It took longer to figure out how
to move around than it would have to read the information if it had
been sensible presented.

Once I had it (sort of) figured out, it was still too slow to be a
viable means of presenting information.

Perhaps you could come up with something where it _does_ make sense
to use that technique?

pie 3d charting etc etc etc. See the black
screen on the wall? That's for steaming video. Mouse over it to see full
VCR controls and to stream video into the 3d environment. Try doing that
in JavaScript

This entire thing is about the size of 2 or 3 jpegs on a regular web
site (in kb).

Very slow to load. I could have loaded a full web page with
graphics in less time, even if it was somewhat larger in raw size.

 

[Jerry Stuckle]

But apparently when you have used it you can't come up with any as to
why it does.

Read back through this thread. I have. You've just ignored it. Or
you've (incorrectly) claimed it isn't so.

But here is a lot more detail - just so you can poo-poo it again.

A good design process starts with requirements gathering, and ensures
everyone agrees on the requirements for the project.

From the requirements you design the project - database, classes, etc.
You look at the flow between objects.

Once the design is completed, you can start writing the code. You
already know what is required, and the code fits together. There is no
trial and error. There is no rewriting code because everything was
designed first.

And when there are changes to the requirements, you can see exactly what
needs to be changed in the design - and therefore in the code.

It works, And it's worked for a lot of years by people who know how to
build complex projects.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
(e-mail address removed)
==================

 

[Jerry Stuckle]

Ben C wrote:
[...]
I can believe you in theory, but I've never actually seen any good OO
programming, and lot of bad OO programming. Where does this training
come from? Who has this experience?
For one thing, I've been doing OO design for around 20 years, 17 of
those as a consultant. I've been on some projects which have good
designs, and managed OO projects. Also, I've taught several OOAD
courses to various organizations.

The experience is in some corporations. I have been brought in as a
consultant when they don't have that experience, to help them along.
Some I train, some already have been trained but no experience.

You're not going to get it out of a library book. This is something
you need to do hands on, with experienced designers.

No disrespect, but this kind of talk isn't winning me over.

I'm not trying to win you over. I'm stating the facts. You can't
learn to play golf from a book, either. And you can't learn it by
watching videos of Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer. You need to get out
and do it. And to do it right, you need classes and private tutoring.

[...]
OO can encourage people to make too many design decisions up-front,
before they really know what they want to do yet.

Good design (not just OO) dictates that your decisions MUST be
made up front.
For houses, yes, not for programs.

Nope, the same it true for programs. Otherwise those programs
become a mess of fixes, half-assed patches and other such stuff.

Not true.

Wrong answer. I've seen it too many time.

The other option is to waste a lot of time completely rewriting code
from scratch.

It wastes programmers time and makes the code less reliable and harder
to maintain and modify later.

No-one's arguing for spaghetti here. Everyone wants a well-structured
program at the end that does the right thing and is easy to maintain.
But how do you get there?

A proper design. Either structured or OO work will. But the design is
all important.

There are no easy answers. OO and design up-front have plenty of
problems too. The most obvious is committing to the wrong design too
early because at the time of making the design the problem was not
properly understood (however much everyone may have claimed they
understood it).

A good design resolves most problems. And you are *much less*
committed to a design that's on paper than you are if you're written
thousands of lines of code.

But that is also part of project management. Ensuring the problem is
properly understood by all parties. And all parties agree to it.

It's a practice I learned over 20 years ago while working for IBM.
And it works.

Can you imagine creating the blueprints after the house is 1/2 built?
But that's how a lot of people approach programming problems.
Indeed, and many programming problems are better approached that way.

Nope. No programming problem is "better" approached that way. Only
those who are either unable or don't want to plan ahead think that.

In my experience many people believe they are more able to plan ahead
than they actually are. Especially when they are put under pressure to
produce professional-looking designs and plans.

And my experience is people believe they can write code even though
they don't understand the problem.

They can. But they're not writing productive code.

Programmers want to write code. You have to drag them kicking and
screaming to write *any* doc. And they will find every excuse they
can to not do it. Including that it "isn't necessary".

Generalizations like that aren't helpful. If you insist on a doc, or a
design, or a plan, then most people will produce them in order to make
you shut up. They won't necessarily be any use though.

Yes, I insist on a design. And I use that design.

You've obviously never been on a project with > 100 programmers for
over two years. Or even one with a 3-4 programmers for six months to
a year.

There is a formal process to managing projects, just like there is for
a lot of things. And it works. But when you've never used this
process, you can come up with all kinds of rationalizations as to why
it won't work.

This is all very nice, but what about RAD? Or Agile? And how does this
apply to small enclosed languages like AS3.

RAD proceeds even faster with a good design. You don't waste your time
on trial and error. And even with RAD tools, it takes less time to
develop the design than the code.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
(e-mail address removed)
==================

 

[dorayme]

Over here in the good ol' USA, our vegetable competitions are generally a
bit different. Last year's national contest was won by a grammatically-
challenged Australian with a logic-recognition problem. (Not mentioning
any names.)

Are you meaning to deny outright that I grew 120 lbs of wonderful
tomatoes in a Melbourne backyard in the 1960s? My sence of gramer
and ligoc tells me you are so denying this. Now, where is that
Officer White, i have new harsh instructions for him...

 

[dorayme]

dorayme

I know I laughed uncontrollably at the popups that came up on *every* page.

Yes. Gosh, I don't much use this server, it is just that the
address has my name on it and I am a sentimental old fool about
myself...

I did use a margin trick to push banner ads out of sight. Inertia
stops me throwing this server off my books. I subscribed a long
time back when I thought you lot might track me down and kill me.
But I now realise you are all gentle lambs and would not harm the
least living thing, not even from another planet.

Are there not popup blockers one can implement? I have little
knowledge of these things as I never seem to browse sites much
that have them.

 

[dorayme]

Here's a great example:

http://dev.getoutsmart.com/os3d/demos/videoroom/

It is not a great example of a real page that has text that
resizes, a menu and so on... It is an example of a snippet of
something. I can imagine the interactive business being useful
for various purposes.

Can I employ you to make one of these things to depict some of
the killfiles I have been in? But I want a menu so that the very
many interested folk can go on a tour of a whole lot of them. I
can give you detailed descriptions from my memory, how I had
things nicely arranged in some, how I was tortured in others, the
screams I heard from other chambers (you do sound too?)

 

[William Gill]

... I certainly _don't_
believe that the solution lies with the judges because judges _are_
lawyers and will generally be swayed by the associated inequitable
mindset intrinsically related to their "calling".

Judges are also human, and thus potentially swayed by many things.
Checks and balances should be central to any solution.

... I simply cannot accept
the old "It's not perfect but it works" tenet.

‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
men to do nothing.’
Edmund Burke

Here's one tenet I do believe in: if something's broke, fix it.

And don't expect ANY fix to be a permanent solution. The system in the
U.S. is not good because 231 years ago several wise men found the
"perfect system." It is good because they had the wisdom to build a
system with methods for implementing significant change, without the
bloodshed usually inherent to such change.