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Category: Web Mastering

The University of Texas closed its accessibility institute today. There's a petition to save it.

I heard about it yesterday in a listserv e-mail that had a series of bullets. One bullet was about Target settling a lawsuit over the accessibility its Web site and agreeing to pay $6 million. Another bullet said UT was closing their accessibility institute sending the message that accessibility isn't a priority. They should talk to Target and see what Target has to say about that.

On the subject of accessibility:

Coders and programmers can hack together html code in a way that makes it hard for disabled people to use the Web. Or they can use elegant code that makes it easy for disabled people to use the Web. To me, it's a no brainer. I produce elegant code that makes the Web page usable by everyone. But the coders and programmers who hack together ugly, non-standard code don't want to change. That's all this is about... they don't want to change.

I'll paraphrase something someone said once:

The Internet makes many things easier for those of us who aren't disabled. The Internet makes many things POSSIBLE for those who are.

It's too bad so many hack coder/programmers would rather build roadblocks than passageways.

It would mean a lot to me if you would sign the petition.

The system for domain names is confusing and frustrating. When I first got my own web hosting, the hosting company purchased my domain name for me. I thought it belonged to me, but when I decided to change hosting companies, they held it hostage. That's why I have strangesandwich.com and ssmrocks.com. I purchased ssmrocks while the strangesandwich was being held hostage. Eventually, the hosting company transferred strangesandwich to me. Now both domains point to my Web site.

strangesandwich.com is about to expire. I got an email from my domain service provider, netnameone.com, to renew it. I clicked through, and it said they were partnering with GoDaddy. I paid for 3 years and set up an account through their new interface. They sent me an e-mail with instructions and secret codes to initiate a transfer. The last step was to enter an authorization code. It said I had to get it from my old service provider. I don't have an old service provider. I've always been with netnameone.com and netnameone.com is who I'm renewing with.

So I sent an e-mail to support. They told me my domain is with Tucows, and I need to contact them to renew. So I go to their site, and it says they don't deal directly with individual domains, and that I need to contact my service provider, netnameone.com.

So netnameone.com tells me I have to contact Tucows. Tucows tells me I have to contact netnameone.com.

I'm screwed.

Lately, I've noticed something about search boxes on web sites. I go to the search box on a site, and instead of searching the site, it searches the whole internet. Then I have to go back to the site to click a radio button to choose the option to search the site instead. CNN is an example.

What are they thinking?

My suspicion is that most people don't really know they're searching the whole web. Who looks at URLs besides geeky weirdos like me?

An even more aggravating problem I've encountered is with PDF files. I opened a PDF file today and wanted to search it. So I clicked the button in the menu bar with the pair of binoculars. The panel that opened said, "Search PDF" and "What word or phrase would you like to search for?" I entered the words and didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to the words on the button: "Search the Internet." It opened a browser window and gave me a Yahoo search results page for the whole freakin' internet.

I guess they get money from Yahoo or Google or another search engine to trick people into searching the internet. It's annoying.

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.