Linking to inaccessible sites?

L

Leif K-Brooks

What should I do when linking to an inaccessible site (99% of the web)?
Put a warning notice? Just link it? Not put the link at all?
 
W

William Tasso

Leif said:
What should I do when linking to an inaccessible site (99% of the
web)?

inaccessible or not accessible? hang on, that's no better is it?
inaccessible as in 404 for example, or inaccessible as in common-sense
failure to markup the document properly?
Put a warning notice? Just link it? Not put the link at all?

answer has to depend on circumstance.
 
L

Leif K-Brooks

William said:
inaccessible or not accessible? hang on, that's no better is it?
inaccessible as in 404 for example, or inaccessible as in common-sense
failure to markup the document properly?

Inaccessible as in tables for layout, no or little structural markup,
images with no alternate text, etc.
 
A

Adrienne

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Leif K-Brooks
Inaccessible as in tables for layout, no or little structural markup,
images with no alternate text, etc.

Are they linking to you? If they are, do they are relative keywords in the
link back to you, and what, if any, is their Google PR? There are rumors
that linking out to sites with low or no PR can drain your PR. I don't know
if that's something important to you or not.
 
J

Jukka K. Korpela

Leif K-Brooks said:
Inaccessible as in tables for layout, no or little structural markup,
images with no alternate text, etc.

So you mean accessibility as defined by WAI ( http://www.w3.org/ ).
(See also the "business guide" http://www.diffuse.org/accessibility.html )
Note that tables for layout do not imply inaccessibility per se,
and not all structural markup is equally important - e.g. <p> and <h2> are
essential whereas <abbr> or longdesc is mostly an exercise in futility.

Regarding to your original question, all of the alternatives you mention are
adequate in certain situations:
a) Put a warning notice?
Yes, if it's especially inaccessible and you can help people by
giving useful advice, e.g. "it's best to disable JavaScript before
entering this site" or "the page is best viewed without images" or
"the page contains flashing effects".
b) Just link it?
In most cases, yes. Since most pages are more or less inaccessible,
people know what to expect.
c) Not put the link at all?
The right choice at least in cases where a more accessible site with
sufficiently equivalent content can be found, or the content is not
very relevant, or the site is really a mess. You need to weigh
users' problems with the expectable gain.
 
J

JT

Leif K-Brooks said:
What should I do when linking to an inaccessible site (99% of the web)?
Put a warning notice? Just link it? Not put the link at all?

I would not bother with any links Leif, as I'm sure the 99% would not want
to be associated with yours.
 
J

jake

Leif K-Brooks said:
Inaccessible as in tables for layout, no or little structural markup,
images with no alternate text, etc.

None of these things on their own (or together, for that matter)
necessarily makes the site inaccessible.

Inappropriate use of Java, Javascript, Shockwave,etc. -- now that can be
'inaccessible' ;-)

regards.
 
J

JT

Leif K-Brooks said:
What should I do when linking to an inaccessible site (99% of the web)?
Put a warning notice? Just link it? Not put the link at all?

I would not bother linking to the 99% Leif, as I'm sure the 99% would in no
way wish to be associated with your site.
 
I

Isofarro

jake said:
None of these things on their own (or together, for that matter)
necessarily makes the site inaccessible.

You don't have any difficulty finding the "Checkout" or "Shopping Basket"
link on amazon.co.uk? That's _just_ a missing alt text.

If you don't have difficulty with that - how do you do it with a speech
browser?
 
I

Isofarro

Leif said:
What should I do when linking to an inaccessible site (99% of the web)?
Put a warning notice? Just link it? Not put the link at all?

Link to it through something like Nick Kew's mod_accessibility? (I hesitate
to mention the BBC's Betsie). Although remember that a script can't improve
the accessibility by adding missing things, but it can remove certain
inaccessibility.
 
J

jake

Isofarro said:
You don't have any difficulty finding the "Checkout" or "Shopping Basket"
link on amazon.co.uk? That's _just_ a missing alt text.

If you don't have difficulty with that - how do you do it with a speech
browser?
They key word in my comment is 'necessarily'.

The particular example that you quote is one of inaccessibility.
However, there are plenty of examples where the lack of suitable
alternative text, although less than ideal, does not in itself make the
site inaccessible.

Ditto for tables-based layout and use of frames.

regards.
 
W

Whitecrest

If you don't have difficulty with that - how do you do it with a speech
browser?

I don't, I do it with IE and it works great. I guess a blind person
could call or ask a sighted person if they could help.

I am sorry you have bad vision, but please don't make the rest of the
world suffer because you have a physical disability. (bla bla bla,
insert PC bullshit here)
 
E

Eric Bohlman

<BOGGLE> What suffering is caused by decent alt text?!

The suffering of the author having to put in a little bit of extra effort,
apparently. I've got this sort of old-fashioned belief that if it can't be
done without cutting corners, it's not worth doing, but then what do I
know?

The Perl community has the concepts of "true Lazyness" and "false
Lazyness." The virtue of True Lazyness involves possibly putting in a
little bit of extra effort on one's own part in order to minimize the
effort that everybody else has to put in. The vice of False Lazyness
involves offloading a little bit of your own effort to thousands (at least)
of other people, thus massively increasing the total amount of effort
required.

Creating accessible pages is True Lazyness. Creating inaccessible pages is
False Lazyness. The OP talked about a blind user encountering an
inaccessible page and needing to call the organization responsible for the
page (what if that contact information isn't accessible) or bringing in a
sighted person to read it. If he does either, right away he's put in more
effort than it would take for the author to have made the page accessible.
Even if he's the only one who has to put in that effort. If that isn't
False Lazyness, I don't know what is.

A good way to tell whether you're being Truly Lazy or Falsely Lazy is to
ask yourself "would I make this decision if I had to offer 24/7/365 tech
support for my creation?" Kind of a milder version of the (possibly
apocryphal) old Roman requirement that the engineer who designed a bridge
had to stand underneath it on the day it was opened.
 
N

Nico Schuyt

Eric said:
.......
A good way to tell whether you're being Truly Lazy or Falsely Lazy is
to ask yourself "would I make this decision if I had to offer
24/7/365 tech support for my creation?"

Great definition!
Nico
 
W

Whitecrest

Really? Even when the image server is down? That's a helluva browser.
Clients that don't support images are one reason for decent alt text.
There are others having nothing to do with the client at all.
<BOGGLE> What suffering is caused by decent alt text?!

But I plead with you, think about the retarded and slow people that surf
the web? What about them? Shouldn't every site be required to use
little words for the retards can enjoy the web?

That is the point I am making, not if alt text is easy to ad or not. PC
is stupid especially when applied to something as huge as the web. It
will never work. and should NEVER be forced on anyone. It is the
companies choice if they want to support it or not.
 
L

Leif K-Brooks

Whitecrest said:
But I plead with you, think about the retarded and slow people that surf
the web? What about them? Shouldn't every site be required to use
little words for the retards can enjoy the web?

There's a difference between not understanding the subject and not being
able to read the discussion.

If I want to have a discussion of art, I'll go right ahead. I'm sorry
that a blind person won't be able to understand most of it, but that
isn't my fault. I will try to make the website discussing the art
accessible to everyone, but the information may not be understandable to
everyone.
That is the point I am making, not if alt text is easy to ad or not. PC
is stupid especially when applied to something as huge as the web. It
will never work. and should NEVER be forced on anyone. It is the
companies choice if they want to support it or not.

It's also my choice if I want to respectfully ask you to keep the web
accessible to everyone.
 
J

Joel Shepherd

Whitecrest said:
But I plead with you, think about the retarded and slow people that
surf the web? What about them? Shouldn't every site be required
to use little words for the retards can enjoy the web?

As another poster pointed out, you're confusing the difference between
not being able to comprehend the information given, and not being able
to access that information at all.
That is the point I am making, not if alt text is easy to ad or
not.

Really?

"I am sorry you have bad vision, but please don't make the rest of the
world suffer because you have a physical disability."

So, again, what world-wide suffering is caused by decent alt text?
 
W

Whitecrest

Really?
"I am sorry you have bad vision, but please don't make the rest of the
world suffer because you have a physical disability."

Why does the rest of the world suffer if you have alt text? Go back and
re-read. I am not stating if it is EASY or NOT, but rather that it (as
well as other things) should not be REQUIRED.

I feel it is up to the client. Pretty simple, you feel differently. I
personally almost always put them there. But I feel there is nothing
wrong with the site if I don't put them there. And yes, I understand
someone with a reader will not know what is there. And I know this
could cause me to loose off of the blind people and people that use
linx.

But here is the kicker. Sometimes, I don't care. And that is ok.
So, again, what world-wide suffering is caused by decent alt text?

Now that you understand what I said, you see that what you said makes
little sense at all.
 
J

Joel Shepherd

Whitecrest said:
Now that you understand what I said, you see that what you said
makes little sense at all.

I understood what you said before. Please don't make it sound like I'm
making little sense: *you're* the one who equated accessibility with
worldwide suffering.
 

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