Re: Critique please! & Do we need an alternate stylesheet?

Victoria Clare wrote:

Would dearly love any comments you may have on:

http://dev.gradwell.com/

(1) Overall: quite nice (and much much better then most efforts seen here).

(2) (and this is the only serious problem I have with the site) About 8% of
the population suffers from Daltonism, the most common form of which is
red/green (and I'm one of them). Becuase you removed the underlines from
the links, and made them red (I have trouble telling the difference between
that shade of red and the black used for non-link text) - I can't see the
links without hunting with the mouse or tab key.

Leave underlines in place unless some other method clearly indicates its a
link (e.g. its in a big obvious menu).

* http://health.iafrica.com/doconline/general/439402.htm

(3) I also suggest you ditch the document.write + noscript and just style a
normal submit button for the login - you can remove the padding and border
in most browsers.

(4) Its impossible to tell where links begin and end in a text browser:

gradwell dot com limited - enabling the Internet that you don't see

about gradwell products knowledge support server_status

.... try marking them up as a <ul> and styleing apropriately.

(5) There is quite a bit of inline style, this would be better in an
external style sheet.

(6) You come very close to XHTML 1.0 Strict. I'd move the rest of the
presentational markup, clear up the other minor problems, and go strict.

(7) Why isn't the Nominet logo a link?

(8) You could do with <label> elements to indicate which form field each bit
of text belongs to.

--
David Dorward http://david.us-lot.org/
Redesign in progress: http://stone.thecoreworlds.net/
Microsoft announces IE is dead (so upgrade):
http://minutillo.com/steve/weblog/20...ces-ie-is-dead

David Dorward <dorward (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in
news:beje9f$69a$1$8302bc10 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk:

Victoria Clare wrote:

Would dearly love any comments you may have on:

http://dev.gradwell.com/

(1) Overall: quite nice (and much much better then most efforts seen
here).

Thank you.

(2) (and this is the only serious problem I have with the site) About
8% of the population suffers from Daltonism, the most common form of
which is red/green (and I'm one of them). Becuase you removed the
underlines from the links, and made them red (I have trouble telling
the difference between that shade of red and the black used for
non-link text) - I can't see the links without hunting with the mouse
or tab key.

Leave underlines in place unless some other method clearly indicates
its a link (e.g. its in a big obvious menu).

* http://health.iafrica.com/doconline/general/439402.htm

Aha! I'd thought about that one, but I tested the colours in a
simulator, and thought it would just about do. Clearly I was wrong.
I've put the underlines on - better?

Do you feel an alternative stylesheet that didn't include link colours
or backgrounds would be more readable?

(3) I also suggest you ditch the document.write + noscript and just
style a normal submit button for the login - you can remove the
padding and border in most browsers.

I know, but a lot of heartache went into displaying that login button
;-) This seemed to be the way that worked on the most platforms, so we
went with it. Any special reason you don't like it?

(4) Its impossible to tell where links begin and end in a text
browser:

gradwell dot com limited - enabling the Internet that you don't see

about gradwell products knowledge support server_status

... try marking them up as a <ul> and styleing apropriately.

Not sure I understand. I can navigate in Lynx by just moving from one
link to the next and selecting the one I want - and they don't run
together. Do you mean a voice browser? I have to admit I've not tested
it in a talking browser, and I'd expect the menu to be problematic
there.

I don't really want to style a list on the main menu, because that would
break the backward compatibility even more: in particular, that menu
system took a while to get working smoothly on IE for the Mac, and I hae
a horrible suspicion that listifying it might break that again.

(6) You come very close to XHTML 1.0 Strict. I'd move the rest of the
presentational markup, clear up the other minor problems, and go
strict.

Maybe next time ;-) At the moment, best practice cross-browser and
cross-platform will do for me.

(7) Why isn't the Nominet logo a link?

(8) You could do with <label> elements to indicate which form field
each bit of text belongs to.

Two good points. Thanks.

Victoria

Victoria Clare wrote:

* http://health.iafrica.com/doconline/general/439402.htm

Aha! I'd thought about that one, but I tested the colours in a
simulator, and thought it would just about do. Clearly I was wrong.
I've put the underlines on - better?

Much, its a lot easier to use now.

Do you feel an alternative stylesheet that didn't include link colours
or backgrounds would be more readable?

Possibly, giving the option to visitors can't hurt.

I know, but a lot of heartache went into displaying that login button
;-) This seemed to be the way that worked on the most platforms, so we
went with it. Any special reason you don't like it?

<noscript> has always felt highly inelegent to me, graceful degradadtion
feels better

(4) Its impossible to tell where links begin and end in a text
browser:

gradwell dot com limited - enabling the Internet that you don't see

about gradwell products knowledge support server_status

... try marking them up as a <ul> and styleing apropriately.

Not sure I understand. I can navigate in Lynx by just moving from one
link to the next and selecting the one I want

Can you (without your prior knowledge) tell which link is which _without_
tabbing (becuase tabbing takes much more effort)?

Just looking at it, a user couldn't know if it was:

<a>about</a> <a>gradwell</a> <a>products</a> <a>knowledge</a> <a>support</a>
<a>server_status</a>

or

<a>about gradwell products</a> <a>knowledge support</a> <a>server_status</a>

or something else.

As a side note, you probably should change the link text so it matches what
is on the graphic! i.e. server_status --> service status

- and they don't run
together. Do you mean a voice browser? I have to admit I've not tested
it in a talking browser, and I'd expect the menu to be problematic
there.

I haven't tested it in an aural browser, but I expect it would be less of an
issue as they tend to announce the begining of links.

--
David Dorward http://david.us-lot.org/
Redesign in progress: http://stone.thecoreworlds.net/
Microsoft announces IE is dead (so upgrade):
http://minutillo.com/steve/weblog/20...ces-ie-is-dead

David Dorward <dorward (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in
news:beluie$iv$1$8302bc10 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk:

Victoria Clare wrote:

(4) Its impossible to tell where links begin and end in a text
browser:

gradwell dot com limited - enabling the Internet that you don't
see

about gradwell products knowledge support server_status

... try marking them up as a <ul> and styleing apropriately.

Not sure I understand. I can navigate in Lynx by just moving from
one link to the next and selecting the one I want

Can you (without your prior knowledge) tell which link is which
_without_ tabbing (becuase tabbing takes much more effort)?

Drat you, you have a point, but I am not debugging that damn menu again!
It was horrible!

I've stuck [] round the ALT text on each menu item, which I think makes
things look a bit more clearly separated in Lynx, though you are right: I
can hardly see for looking at it at this stage.

Good spot on the inaccurate alt text by the way - I have fixed - many
thanks!

Victoria

In message <bem5h7$co9$1$8300dec7 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk>, David Dorward
<dorward (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> writes

Victoria Clare wrote:

[snip]

I've stuck [] round the ALT text on each menu item, which I think makes
things look a bit more clearly separated in Lynx, though you are right: I
can hardly see for looking at it at this stage.

An external perspective is often helpful.

I don't think that [] will cause major problems in aural browsers, although
it might be worth checking.

Sounds OK in IE6/HPR

--
Jake