WAI - WCAG 1

Apparently our web editor ordered our new site to be "WAI adapted".
However, simply by changing the font size in MS Internet Explorer for
Windows our site completely falls apart. So we are looking at if the site
actually is WAI adapted, which I interprete as conforming to WCAG 1.0

I've read the checklist and some of the spec's found on
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php but am uncertain on how to apply that
to our site.

What do you think? Site: http://www.forumsyd.se

Change the font size in MSIE Windows to see what I mean...

TIA

Martin

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Shieldfire <shieldfire (AT) gmail (DOT) com> writes:

Apparently our web editor ordered our new site to be "WAI adapted".
However, simply by changing the font size in MS Internet Explorer for
Windows our site completely falls apart. So we are looking at if the site
actually is WAI adapted, which I interprete as conforming to WCAG 1.0

Reasonable interpretation. There is quite a lot of accessibility stuff
that isn't in (or rather, is only hinted at by, WCAG 1.0) - as you'd
expect from a 7-year old document. Most of the document is generally
good advice, though.

I've read the checklist and some of the spec's found on
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php but am uncertain on how to apply that
to our site.

What do you think? Site: http://www.forumsyd.se

There's bigger problems than the font size. Let's get started:
{Your site in Lynx}
FRAME: blank
FRAME: main

Step 1: lose the frames. Frames can be implemented reasonably
accessibly, but it's never worth the masses of extra effort. Instead,
get rid of the frames and build the site some other way. This should
be fairly easy, since the 'blank' frame does absolutely nothing...

{Follow the 'main' frame}
eng | esp | Hem | Om Forum Syd | Kontakt | Login

[spacer.gif] Medlemskap i Forum Syd
Hur din organisation blir medlem och dagens 201 medlemsorganisationer.
[arrow.gif] ...and so on...

Step 2: Sort out your alt texts. You have a bunch of images without
alternative text. Most of them look like they're just decorative, so
add an alt="" to those.

Change the font size in MSIE Windows to see what I mean...

Hmm, any smaller than Medium is unreadable, and any larger explodes
the layout. So, there's two steps to solve this:
{Look in the CSS file}
font-size: 0.7em ... font-size: 0.6em ...

Step 3: Okay. Any font-size less than 0.8em will probably be
unreadable for a lot of users. Any font-size less than 1.0em will be
less-than-easily readable for a lot of users. You probably need to
get your font sizes a bit more normal. And avoid Verdana, too, for
reasons you can find in the group archives.

{look a bit more}
width: 764px;

Step 4: If your design wasn't so inflexible, it probably wouldn't
break so badly if someone increased the font size. Use em and % to set
the size of boxes. This also has the advantage that you can use more
of the browser window if it's available, and at the same time fit into
narrower browser windows than you could before.

Do a search for "Any Size Design" for some more tips on this.

{click on some links}

Step 5: Make your visited links a different colour to your unvisited
links. There's a big usability gain from this.

{run the site past http://validator.w3.org/ }
Hmm, 87 errors after I told it what character set to use.

Step 6: You should fix these errors [1], and then consider migrating
to the HTML 4.01 Strict DOCTYPE.

Well, those 6 steps won't give you a completely accessible site, but
it will be a start. Good luck. Get yourself a good set of various
browsers and test, test, test as well.

[1] I notice you use <nobr> - that's probably one of the more useful
invalid constructs, but you might not actually need it here. I suspect
not, at the moment.

--
Chris

On Tuesday 27 September 2005 20.17 kchayka spoke unto the unsuspecting
world:

FYI, using em units for font-size is the cause of this bizarre IE
behavior. It's a pretty well-known bug. The fix is equally as well-known
- use % instead of em for all font sizes (1em=100%), or
- set font-size:100% on the body element, leaving the others as is

It really is easier just to use % throughout, then you don't even have
to think about it.

Hm, that might explain another problem in a site I'm working on. (The one in
this post isn't mine).

Anyway - what I'm still curious about is if the problems would breach the
WAI conformity? Whatdoyouthink?

Martin S

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Shieldfire <shieldfire (AT) gmail (DOT) com> writes:

On Tuesday 27 September 2005 20.17 kchayka spoke unto the unsuspecting
world:
FYI, using em units for font-size is the cause of this bizarre IE
behavior. It's a pretty well-known bug. The fix is equally as well-known
- use % instead of em for all font sizes (1em=100%), or
- set font-size:100% on the body element, leaving the others as is

It really is easier just to use % throughout, then you don't even have
to think about it.

Hm, that might explain another problem in a site I'm working on. (The one in
this post isn't mine).

Anyway - what I'm still curious about is if the problems would breach the
WAI conformity? Whatdoyouthink?

Well, for the six I mentioned, definitely. I missed out a few others
that would too, I expect. You can basically assume that any site that
isn't written with accessibility in mind will have some glaring
accessibility flaw, and a bunch of minor ones too.

There's a checklist on the WAI pages where you can tick boxes against
the guidelines. It's not really the best approach to getting good
accessibility, but you should find a fair number of problems with this
site just by systematically going through the Priority 1 and Priority
2 guidelines.

--
Chris

On Wednesday 28 September 2005 11.50 Chris Morris spoke unto the
unsuspecting world:

There's a checklist on the WAI pages where you can tick boxes against
the guidelines. It's not really the best approach to getting good
accessibility, but you should find a fair number of problems with this
site just by systematically going through the Priority 1 and Priority
2 guidelines.

Yes, I know - that was what I was unsure of. Prio 1 must be met, and at
least one point is questionable...

Martin S

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On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Shieldfire chiselled into the living usenet rock:

On Wednesday 28 September 2005 11.50 Chris Morris spoke unto the
unsuspecting world:

There's a checklist on the WAI pages where you can tick boxes
against the guidelines. It's not really the best approach to
getting good accessibility, but you should find a fair number of
problems with this site just by systematically going through the
Priority 1 and Priority 2 guidelines.

Yes, I know - that was what I was unsure of. Prio 1 must be met, and
at least one point is questionable...

With respect, I'm not sure why you posted that remark, since it tells
the usenauts nothing upon which they could really comment. If you
were to be more specific, you can always ignore the comments that you
get. But then, on the other hand, you might get a comment that you
could use.

good luck