KDE.org Web Site Accessibility Report

[Mat Colton]

Am Mittwoch, 27. November 2002 01:43 schrieb Olaf Jan Schmidt:
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> Hi!
>
> I thought it might help to have a close look at accessibility issues in
> the current web sites and the existing suggestions for the new layout.
> You can find the result of my work as first Accessibility Report under
> the URL http://accessibility.kde.org/reports/websites.html

Taken from that page:

" version usability.kde.org/newdesign performes well on text browsers, but 
unfortunately the navigation bar jumps to the bottom of the page using a very 
small Konqueror window under KDE 3.0.4. "

That one is just a fast draft done by Jason and Neil AFAIK. All problems can 
be solved as you already pointed out. 

"Bobby reports some smaller problems when checking against the Web Content 
Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. "

According to my own experience and as said by accessibility guru Joe Clark 
"...on testing of accessible Web authoring. The Usual Suspect in this regard 
is of course Bobby, which is overrated, outdated, and underpowered..."

For more Information on Screenreaders and accessiblitiy
http://joeclark.org/accessiblog/ab-screen.html

There is another WAI/ Section 508 validator at: 
http://valet.webthing.com/access/online.html

"A common design for all KDE sites would improve the accessibility of the KDE 
web site family very much, as having the navigation structure consistent 
improves the general usability and especially helps some handicapped users 
who need more time to get familiar with all those different navigation 
structures."

Thank you so much for saying that. I was called unrealistic in asking for 
this. As an example, a global KDE navigation structure, not only a simuliar 
layout, will greatly enhance the usability experience on all participating 
sites. And, no, I'm not asking to force this on to the maintainers. My first 
and *basic* idea can be found at:
http://www.web-xs.de/~dev/kde/nav/
My goal is to provide a navigation structure that is the same on all 
participating KDE sites. Not only does this help the average user to find 
cross KDE information faster, it also helps visually impared as we can offer 
accesskeys and much more.
At the moment there are a lot of sites using the basic KDE.org design, but 
most of them are fundamentally different in usage. This is, in terms of 
usability, worse then giving each site their own design/layout.
Just my 2 ct.
-- 
Bye,
Mat