Yay! Blog!
Category: September 2006

I think people think I'm a zealot about web standards and accessibility. I've been introspective about it... wondering if I'm taking things too far. After reading Has accessibility been taken too far?, I feel better about things.

Jeff Croft talks about the real zealots and how they expect too much at times. I don't think I expect too much. I don't expect tableless layouts and alternate stylesheets for every affliction or prediliction. I'd just like to see designers and developers consider accessibility with a positive attitude during design and development. I'd like to see them do the best they can.

It's not that difficult. There's just a learning curve to get over, "letting go" of some old habits, and forming of new ones.

I can almost hear the eyes roll when I bring up accessibility. I've heard someone say "Eff the blind people" before. It's very disheartening. I keep plugging away, though.

On a happy note, the other morning when I got to work, one of the developers had emailed a link around about the Section 508 standards saying he thought it might be helpful. That made me feel good.

I just found comfort reading stuff at www.webstandards.org.

Here are some excerpts:

It is WaSP’s hope that, once informed of the benefits standards provide, site owners will stop viewing their sites as a species of print advertising that must look exactly the same in all environments. And that they will focus instead on delivering appropriate content and functionality within the context of presentations that may vary slightly according to the needs and capabilities of differing browsers and devices

I would add "differing people" to this list, too.

Highly paid professionals* continue to churn out invalid, inaccessible sites filled with structurally meaningless markup, huge image maps, excessively nested tables, and outdated detection scripts that cause the very usability problems they were originally intended to prevent.

*I wouldn't call them "professionals" as a mark of a professional is that they follow the standards of their profession.

Many books on web development still teach outdated methods, and many practitioners take pride in delivering sites that look and work exactly the same in compliant and non–compliant desktop browsers alike, at the cost of accessibility, long–term viability, forward compatibility, and lack of alternative device support.

I think I can face the day now. Thank you, drive through.

Who's the idiot who thought it a good idea to carve the TV screen into 8 segments? I don't need to see both coaches and both quarterbacks every second of the game. Give me my full screen back.



Edit: Oh... I just noticed, the same game is on another ESPN channel in full screen mode. Whew! Thank goodness. Funny thing is that it says that right at the bottom of the TV screen. I didn't notice it because of all the windows.