Quo vadis kde.org?

[Mat Colton]

Am Samstag, 9. November 2002 19:09 schrieb Christoph Cullmann:
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> 2. an other new modified version of testing up:
> www.kde.org/testing/modified-4

As always, I try to remind you ppl to check usability (though a bit more harsh 
this time...):
- The page is a pain in the a** using a screen reader, unusable due to the 
structure. Tested it with JAWS and IE, which is the most used combination for 
visually impaired. Many ppl think most visually impaired users use Lynx for 
feeding their screen reader. Well, it's not true, most use IE (not that I 
like it) and some additional software.
- Try setting the font size to large in IE to see how ppl with visual problems 
(not blind) look at the site. The site is unusable. Oh, and while you're at 
it, try the same with the current kde.org design to see how fine that works. 
Usability and WAI is not only about getting rid of tables and making print 
style sheets. Oohh, the design uses tables... I thought that was outta there, 
well... 
- The design gets into trouble on higher resolutions. The "Inform" and 
"Related Links" fields are too small on 1600x1200 and higher displays. The 
boxes get over sized due to the average font size I use with Konqueror. The 
"link box" headlines should not be fixed to a specific size. I didn't really 
look at the code, so I don't know how it was done, but the line with those 
headers and the search field doesn't scale with the users font size. Besides 
that, resolutions are getting larger and we don't want to have to redesign 
the site in a year...
- There are far too many links on the page. As Marko Faas pointed out, many of 
them are confusing or useless. I know this is just a design study. But 
anyway, crop of the confusing/useless links and the site will work with a one 
sided menu. I know we are trying to get the layout straight, not the content, 
but we have to keep the content in mind when doing the layout.
- I see no way of making the global navigation usable via logical HTML 
accesskeys which is the favorite way of the visually impaired to navigate 
through sites. At least jumping through the links with the TAB key seems to 
work well.
On a related but OT matter, Konquerer 3.0.4 doesn't support accesskeys...

So what I'm saying is that the design itself is not up to what it should be 
IMO. It actually looks quite nice, but it's a screen design, not a web 
design. The web is not only displayed on screens. There is no big difference 
to many possible users between the current design and something done in Flash 
when it comes down to accessability/usability. But of course we can do like 
most of the web developers, assume IE and 1024x768 with standard font 
settings is what everybody uses...
Root66 has claimed '...we saw that the "usability" group and me are obviously 
aiming different targets.'. 
Very true...quo vadis kde.org?
-- 
Bye,
Mat