Peculiar HTML?

[Kell Gatherer]

I've been asked to comment on the new web site that's been put together
for my local amenity group, the Soho Society here in London.

See www.thesohosociety.org.uk

The site claims to be compliant with the Web Accessibility Initiative,
however the opening page is pure Javascript, and from what I can make out
is padded out with an unnecessary (and corrupted) JPEG, which I think is
there to calculate the speed of the connection or summat.

I've tried the site with Javascript switched off, and also using the
browser in my Nokia Communicator, and in both instances the opening page
is entirely blank. With Javascript switched on, the site makes an attempt
to discover which browser I'm using, and then pump differing content to me
according to what it thinks it has found out. If the site suspects you
are not using a standard version of Internet Explorer, for example, it
assumes that you are not using a mouse, and so sends out pages which show
keyboard short-cuts which work in, er, Internet Explorer.

I'm going to an executive meeting of the Society this evening, and will be
expected to comment. Does anyone agree with me that the site's
"accessibility" might be improved?

 

[Kris]

I'm going to an executive meeting of the Society this evening, and will be
expected to comment. Does anyone agree with me that the site's
"accessibility" might be improved?

It does not meet WCAG1.0 checkpoint 6.3. Since it does not pass WCAG
priority-1 level accessibility it is not compliant with WAI guidelines.

"And if you use applets and scripts (Priority 1)
6.3 Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other
programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not
possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible
page"

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-scripts

 

[kchayka]

See www.thesohosociety.org.uk

The site claims to be compliant with the Web Accessibility Initiative,

Try accessing it with cookies disabled.

 

[rf]

See www.thesohosociety.org.uk

The site claims to be compliant with the Web Accessibility Initiative,

Whoever said that is either lying or has no idea about web accessibility.

The WAI aside I hade a quick look.

The first glaring accessibility issue I found is the main navigation. This
is an image of some text and a bad one at that. It is also eight pixels
high. This is less than half the size I prefer my text to be. Being an image
of text it is not resizable in most browsers and the one it is resizable in
simply can not copy with the poor quality of the image. The only saving
point is that there is alt text but this then turns it into mystery meat
navigation. Google for this term if you don't now what it means.

This site, with its microscopic and almost invisible navigation is IMHO
intentionally discriminating against partially sighted people. In Australia
(and IIRC the UK) this can be illegal.

 

[Andy Dingley]

I've been asked to comment on the new web site that's been put together
for my local amenity group, the Soho Society here in London.

See www.thesohosociety.org.uk

The site claims to be compliant with the Web Accessibility Initiative,

It's abyssmal.

However I think you're facing an impossible problem trying to build
good web design anywhere near Soho. There are far too many dezsyner
wankers cruising its streets and you'll find it impossible to _not_
have one of these idiots get themselves involved. Just be grateful it
isn't all in Flash.

 

[Xavier Perseguers]

I've been asked to comment on the new web site that's been put together
for my local amenity group, the Soho Society here in London.

See www.thesohosociety.org.uk

What the hell with this tiny design? I'm very impressed that on my
1600x1200 screen about 1/15 only is used for showing me the website. The
rest is white! Maybe I should only have a 320x200 display? I think even
the oldest version of Windows still available is not capable of using
such monitors. On a palm or a cell-phone, OK but on a modern computer
that's awfull.

Xavier

 

[Kell Gatherer]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:52:00 +0000 (GMT), Kell Gatherer

It's abyssmal.

However I think you're facing an impossible problem trying to build
good web design anywhere near Soho. There are far too many dezsyner
wankers cruising its streets and you'll find it impossible to _not_
have one of these idiots get themselves involved. Just be grateful it
isn't all in Flash.

Thanks for the comments. I largely agree, however I live and work in Soho
and, at the risk of poking my head above the parapet, rather hope my own
web site would not fit into the above category