In message <F1CFF4FC001F412AA6D8FFEA324A4BB8@icomrr> on Tue, 9 Aug 2005,
C. BONOMI <[log in to unmask]> wrote
>-----Message d'origine-----
>De : P Boylan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Envoye : Tuesday, July 19, 2005 1:28 PM
>A : C. BONOMI
>Cc : [log in to unmask]
>Objet : Re: New ICOM Web Site - Accessibility Issues
>
>
>Dear Carla,
>
>Congratulations on the progress - I think that the new home pages at:
>http://icom.museum/new/ are a big advance overall.
>
>However, there are quite a few issues relating to accessibility standards.
I replied directly to Carla when the new ICOM Web site was first
announced, but as Patrick has opened the discussion to the ICOM-L list I
thought it would be worth copying my comments here, as a contribution to
further discussion. Some of the points may have been fixed since I wrote
- I have not re-checked them all. I hope that this is not "boring
ICOM-L with lots of technical details" but I think that it is important
that people should be aware of these issues:
I wrote on 18th July:
>Dear Carla
>
>Thanks for letting us know about the redesigned ICOM Web site, and for
>your work to make it look more attractive. I have not examined it all
>in detail, but a few points struck me at first glance that you might
>like to reconsider in order to achieve your objective of allowing good
>accessibility.
>
>At present the site fails many of the checks carried out by an
>accessibility test site such as Watchfire
><http://webxact.watchfire.com/>.
>
>The things that I noticed immediately were
>
>1. The home page is a fixed width , so that it appears as a small area
>in the middle of my screen, which displays 1280x1024 pixels. Your other
>pages are correctly set to expand or contract to fit the size of the
>window, so it is a pity that the home page does not do so too.
>
>2. Many pieces of text are fixed in size, so that I cannot use the
>"text size" function of my browser to make it easier to read.
>
>3. Much of the text is in low contrast colours, such as one shade of
>grey or blue on a background of a slightly different shade of the same
>colour. The message "Updated: 11 July 2005" in the bar at the bottom
>of many pages is barely legible, for example.
>
>4. The home page has an irritating scrolling section, containing only
>two links but which makes the user have to wait until it has scrolled
>up in case there is anything of interest that will appear. Scrolling
>areas of this kind are a distraction, because you feel that you have to
>keep an eye on them while trying to read text elsewhere on the page.
>
>5. Links are not shown in a standard way. In the left-hand menu and the
>central sub-menu they are highlighted with a blue bar when pointed to;
>in the right-hand "tools" menu they are in orange but are not
>highlighted when pointed to; in the scrolling section the "Disaster
>Relief
>Web Site" link uses the standard method of underlined blue text, but
>the other item "Risk Management ICOM News 2005 n.2" the text is not
>underlined and the link is only from the associated image. On other
>pages links are sometimes underlined and sometimes not.
>
>6. I think it would be better to put the "tools" menu on the bottom
>left, making it a continuation of the main menu. This will simplify
>navigation by bringing all the navigation links together.
>
>7. There is no link back to the home page on any of the other pages
>that I have looked at. This is desirable so that people don't have to
>go back one step at a time when they want to look for something else.
>Perhaps everything is accessible from the left-hand menu on every page,
>but that menu looks different from the one on the home page, so people
>cannot be sure that they are not missing something. If the content is
>the same it would be better to make the home page menu look the same as
>the ones on other pages.
>
>8. Clicking the main headings such as "What is ICOM" on the menu on
>pages other than the home page attempts a link to
><http://icom.museum/new/ddd>, which gives a "HTTP 404 - File not found"
>error.
>
>9. It is not clear what the function is of the text "icom.museum"
>printed vertically in faint blue characters at the bottom of the
>left-hand bar. Is this intended to be purely decorative? It might be
>interpreted as a link, or a heading like "news" and "tools" printed in
>the same way, but it is neither.
>
>10. On the page <http://icom.museum/new/institutional.html> there is an
>image of an ICOM card which links to
><http://icom.museum/new/card.html>. On that page the same image and
>link occur, but the link does not go anywhere because you are already
>there.
>
>11. The menus on pages other than the home page are rather difficult to
>interpret. Different parts of them are left open depending on which
>item the mouse has last touched. There are four different styles:
>
>dark blue text on grey
>dark blue text on blue
>white text on grey
>white text on blue
>
>and it is not clear what the significance of each is. It would be
>better to limit the variety to two levels, and use standard drop-down
>menus, which would require less jumping about.
>
>
>
>I'm sorry that this list has grown rather long as I looked at the site
>- I hope that you don't mind and find it helpful in creating the final
>version. You did ask for feedback!
>
>Best wishes
>
>Leonard
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