Can't read LCR website, inaccessible

Hello

I can't read the London & Continental Railways website and they have no
email address to complain to. I tried calling them, but got put through to
one guy who hung up, and another who had voicemail. Does anyone know how to
contact them?
http://www.lcrhq.co.uk/

What I want to tell them is that I have an automatic press release
monitoring program, Marvin, which tracks press releases for over 80
companies and organisations in the rail business, mostly in Europe and North
America.

Many of these companies have poor websites, but I can often have Marvin work
around this. Not so with London & Continental Railways, because their
website is completely done in Flash, and there is no text version or any
html pages at all, except the one single page which contains their Flash
animation.

To my knowledge, Flash is not an official web standard, so I will not have
Marvin learn Flash. In addition, the blinking lights and spinning logos at
the LCR website can be done with html + javascript. This eliminates the need
to make the website inaccessible to those who are unable or unwilling to use
a Flash client reader. The advantage of removing this hurdle is generally
applicable, but particularly to those connecting over a mobile phone network
or a conventional modem, as well as people like me trying to monitor
content.

Catering to these people is obviously in the interest of any organisation
wishing to have people read about what they are doing. Another disadvantage
with an all-flash website is that you can't send a link to a particular page
to a friend over email. This is exactly the problem Marvin is encountering
while trying to monitor LCR.

Removing html content in favour of Flash harkens back to the bad old days of
incompatible diskettes and file formats. It is also similar to installing
steps on concourses which previously were wheelchair- and
suitcase-accessible.

I would be most grateful if this message could be forwarded to the LCR
website guys.

--
Erik Sandblom
my site is EriksRailNews.com
for those who don't believe, no explanation is possible
for those who do, no explanation is necessary

Yes, Flash only websites are moronic.

There is precious little information on that particular website anyway.
Strip away the pointless annoying animations and you could easily fit
all the text on to a single page.

Erik Sandblom <eriks (AT) operamail (DOT) com> wrote in
news:C0069657.17A8D%eriks (AT) operamail (DOT) com:

Removing html content in favour of Flash harkens back to the bad old
days of incompatible diskettes and file formats. It is also similar
to installing steps on concourses which previously were wheelchair-
and suitcase-accessible.

Companies that do this don't know any better and even worse, they don't
seem to care. Often, the company leadership doesn't understand the
importance of their web site; they've been told they should have one so
they get some secretary or someone to put one together even though that
someone has zero experience; they might be a great secretary, but that
does not automatically make them a great web developer.

Personally, I don't even have the Flash plugin installed on most of the
systems I use. I do on one computer for the portion of my advanced web
development class where I teach how to use and how not to use Flash. I
usually don't bother with Flash as there are so many sites that use it
poorly as you described. It is totally useless on way too many sites.

--
Stan McCann "Uncle Pirate" http://stanmccann.us/pirate.html
Webmaster/Computer Center Manager, NMSU at Alamogordo
http://alamo.nmsu.edu/ There are 10 kinds of people.
Those that understand binary and those that don't.

Erik Sandblom wrote:

Hello

I can't read the London & Continental Railways website and they have no
email address to complain to. I tried calling them, but got put through to
one guy who hung up, and another who had voicemail. Does anyone know how to
contact them?
http://www.lcrhq.co.uk/

What I want to tell them is that I have an automatic press release

[snip]

I would be most grateful if this message could be forwarded to the LCR
website guys.

Here's the content of their contact page:

KEY CONTACTS

LCR
3rd Floor, 183 Eversholt Street
London
NW1 1AY
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7391 4300
Fax: +44 (0)20 7391 4400

LONDON & CONTINENTAL STATIONS AND PROPERTY
3rd Floor, 183 Eversholt Street
London
NW1 1AY
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7391 4300
Fax: +44 (0)20 7391 4400

UNION RAILWAYS (NORTH)
CTRL House
2 Ossulston Street
London
NW1 1HT
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7681 5000

RAIL LINK ENGINEERING
CTRL House
2 Ossulston Street
London
NW1 1HT
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7681 5000

CTRL 24 HOUR CONSTRUCTION HELPLINE
Tel: 0845 60 40 246 (local call rate)

MEDIA ENQUIRIES
If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry about LCR or any of
its subsidiary companies, please contact the LCR Press office:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7391 4360
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7391 4460
Email: ldoughty (AT) lcrhq (DOT) co.uk

Out of office hours, please call our 24 hour public helpline on 0845
60 40 246 to be put in touch with an on-duty press officer.

***

HTH

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
accessible web design: http://locusoptimus.com/

Now playing: King Crimson - Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part III

i artikel wgy3d83rr9x8.15gto1lmv5yvu.dlg (AT) 40tude (DOT) net, skrev Els på
els.aNOSPAM (AT) tiscali (DOT) nl den 06-02-01 17.57:

Erik Sandblom wrote:

I can't read the London & Continental Railways website and they have no
email address to complain to. I tried calling them, but got put through to
one guy who hung up, and another who had voicemail. Does anyone know how to
contact them?
http://www.lcrhq.co.uk/

What I want to tell them is that I have an automatic press release

[snip]

I would be most grateful if this message could be forwarded to the LCR
website guys.

Here's the content of their contact page:

Snip

MEDIA ENQUIRIES
If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry about LCR or any of
its subsidiary companies, please contact the LCR Press office:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7391 4360
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7391 4460
Email: ldoughty (AT) lcrhq (DOT) co.uk

Isn't that something. I was actually able to get that page using a different
browser, but didn't notice the little down-arrow-thing indicating the
presence of more information, so I missed seeing the email.

I have just written a paper letter and intend to send it, but will also send
an email to tell them what people are saying here.

Thank you very much for the transcript, I wouldn't have seen the email
otherwise. By the way, I hate non-standard javascript and Flash scrollers
because they are fiddly and you don't notice them... Why no just use the
System (Windows/Mac/Linux/KDE) scrollbars? Breath deeply...

--
Erik Sandblom
my site is EriksRailNews.com
for those who don't believe, no explanation is possible
for those who do, no explanation is necessary

Stan McCann wrote:

Personally, I don't even have the Flash plugin installed on most of the
systems I use. I do on one computer for the portion of my advanced web
development class where I teach how to use and how not to use Flash. I
usually don't bother with Flash as there are so many sites that use it
poorly as you described. It is totally useless on way too many sites.

And I am sure the site is inaccesssible to anyone with any form of
visual disability.
--
Bruce Fletcher
Stronsay, Orkney
<www.stronsay.co.uk/claremont>

In uk.railway Erik Sandblom <eriks (AT) operamail (DOT) com> wrote:

Thank you very much for the transcript, I wouldn't have seen the email
otherwise. By the way, I hate non-standard javascript and Flash scrollers
because they are fiddly and you don't notice them... Why no just use the
System (Windows/Mac/Linux/KDE) scrollbars? Breath deeply...

Usually because you've employed clue-deficient "web designers" who are
trying to impose authoring concepts from paper based graphic design
inappropriately on digital media. The managers who employment them
see a glitzy "web site" (even if its all Flash - they often don't know
the difference) and are disconnected from any end user feedback that
says, "this is crap - I can't access it."

They make a better target for the DDA police than footbridges on
wayside halts in the middle of nowhere me thinks...

Jim'll

Bruce Fletcher wrote:

Stan McCann wrote:
Personally, I don't even have the Flash plugin installed on most of the
systems I use. I do on one computer for the portion of my advanced web
development class where I teach how to use and how not to use Flash. I
usually don't bother with Flash as there are so many sites that use it
poorly as you described. It is totally useless on way too many sites.

And I am sure the site is inaccesssible to anyone with any form of
visual disability.

Isn't that against some sort of UK law?

Erik Sandblom wrote:

Many of these companies have poor websites, but I can often have Marvin work
around this. Not so with London & Continental Railways, because their
website is completely done in Flash, and there is no text version or any
html pages at all, except the one single page which contains their Flash
animation.

If you look at the files being loaded (Safari and Firefox make this
easy), you'll see that the Flash file is actually loading in a bunch of
XML. Look at:

http://www.lcrhq.co.uk/xml/newspress.xml
http://www.lcrhq.co.uk/xml/newseditors.xml
http://www.lcrhq.co.uk/xml/newsimages.xml

You could theoretically parse this XML to get the news stories.

But I agree that you shouldn't have to. Flash is a great, mature,
reliable technology for producing certain types of webapps, and people
like LCR give it a bad name with this sort of unnecessary shenanigans.

Richard

Richard Fairhurst wrote:

But I agree that you shouldn't have to. Flash is a great, mature,
reliable technology for producing certain types of webapps, and people
like LCR give it a bad name with this sort of unnecessary shenanigans.

Agreed!

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said so far. Sites like
these result when you hire a bunch of web "designers", who know (or
care) nothing of web _development_, accessibility, standards, etc.

One of my friends in college was taking a web design class and he said
he liked using Flash because he hates "that HTML crap". Luckily he
didn't get a job doing web design after college!