Re: Request Opinion of my site

In message <ekogn0ti4t8sqr711l37oe1nijeroh9jha (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, Randall Fox
<fox_no_spam-usenet001 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> writes

www.orbspinner.com

Thanks..

Randall Fox

Overall -- a nice looking site.

Some suggestions:

(a) Check the images and ensure that there's adequate 'alternative text'
specified for all of them. On the first page there's no alt. text for
the logo; more importantly you've got no alt text on 2 links
(assets/xml.gif).

Complete and correct alternative text is especially important when users
with Assistive Technology (AT) UAs (screen-readers, talking browsers,
etc.) are 'reading' the site.

(b) Put a 'skip navigation' link as the first entry on each page in
order to bypass the navigation and go directly to the content. The link
can be made invisible.

(c) You have many headings that are styled as such visually (features,
requirements, news, etc.) but which are not in the HTML mark-up. i.e. no
<h1> <h2> <h3> etc.

Headings are important for AT users.

(d) The <title></title> on each page contents should reflect the purpose
of that page.

(e) As others have said, there are problems with MSIE when trying to
resize text due ti the use of pt and px. While you're figuring that one
out, you might consider removing the 'line-height' from the CSS as
people will be able to resize text in IE happily using the
'accessibility' option; the text resizes OK, but the fixed leading will
make the headings difficult to read.

Another good reason for not using px or pt in the line-height is that
some browsers (such as Opera) can be configured so that the text size is
automatically set to a minimum size. A fixed leading (line-height) can
make the affected text hard/impossible to read.

(f) On the FAQ page, it would be useful to mark-up the questions as
headers (<h2> or whatever) to aid navigation for AT users. i.e They can
skip from header-to-header without having to wade through the FAQ menu
to find the next link.

regards.


--
Jake

In message <t4jhn0hf2479ol2omb5i8huo93uugisuht (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, Randall Fox
<fox_no_spam-usenet001 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> writes
[snip]

(b) Put a 'skip navigation' link as the first entry on each page in
order to bypass the navigation and go directly to the content. The link
can be made invisible.

Do you have an example site?

http://www-306.ibm.com/able/product_.../ibmfocus.html

At the top of the code they have the following link:

<a href="#main">
<img src="//www.ibm.com/i/c.gif" border="0" width="1" height="1"
alt="Skip to main content"/>
</a>

When this is selected, the user is transferred to:

<a name="main"></a>

Which allows the AT user to bypasses the various menu items and go
directly to the main content of the page.

What an AT user will normally hear on entering the page is:

----------------------------------------------------------------
[IBM.]
[Skip to main content.]
United States
(Start of form 1.)
[Text.]
[Search button: Image Button.]
(End of form 1.)
Home | Products & services | Support & downloads | My account
Select a country
Accessibility Center
Solution offerings
............. and so on
---------------------------------------------------------------

If the user stops the reading and selects 'Skip to main content.' the
user will then start hearing:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Accessibility Center > Product accessibility information >
IBM’s focus on accessibility
Technology and accessibility from an IBM perspective
IBM's focus on accessibility encompasses our roles as a developer and
manufacturer of Information Technology (IT) products, a service provider
in the IT industry, a buyer ............
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


In other words, they can avoid having to listen to the menu items on the
page.

IBM uses the '1-pixel gif link' approach as a means of providing a link,
but keeping it invisible to graphical browsers. The same function could
be achieved using CSS if preferred.

I don't understand what a skip
navigation would do? Do you mean jump to an anchor after the NAV bar?

See above.

[snip]

(f) On the FAQ page, it would be useful to mark-up the questions as
headers (<h2> or whatever) to aid navigation for AT users. i.e They can
skip from header-to-header without having to wade through the FAQ menu
to find the next link.

Do you mean to remove the link or just put <H1> <H2> ... etc around
it? Also, the questions appear in two places on the FAQ. Which part
are you referring to ?

Set the target of the link in the menu as a header.

e.g. put it on each of the 'questions' of the 'question/answer' pairs.

Thanks

Randall Fox

--
Jake