Comments on: Obama’s Web Transparency: not for everybody.

By: Thoughts on Design

Thoughts on Design — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:36:58 +0000

Two Accessibility Discussions You Need to Follow…

There are two good accessibility discussions going on right now, and you need to be following them. The first is Glenda Watson Hyatt’s Four Parties Contribute to an Accessible Blogosphere. Glenda is pushing for more accessibility in blogging platform…

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:59:12 +0000

Thanks for your comments, Jean-Francoise! That’s definitely another good point to touch on, since it’s harmful to any non-visual user of the site.

By: Jf Naud

Jf Naud — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:25:24 +0000

Hi,

I’ve done almost the same analysis on whitehouse.gov a few weeks ago.

Yet, I have added a very bad practise : links are very badly labelled ! Either they have a very unprecise label (“watch the video”, “read this post”, “clicking here”), either lots of them have the same label but point to different web pages (“learn more…”).

The result is bad (especially for a governmental website).

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:30:21 +0000

I hadn’t seen that! (I’m shamefacedly inattentive to podcasts. Do you have a transcript?)

Thanks for the link, Dennis!

By: Dennis Lembree

Dennis Lembree — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:13:50 +0000

Another fair and insightful article, Joe. I like how you provided suggestions on how to solve particular issues. Also, for those who missed it, Web Axe reviewed Recovery.gov in a podcast a couple months ago.

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:43:38 +0000

Thanks for your comments, Jim! Like you, I didn’t conduct a complete investigation of the accessibility flaws - and you’re right, I did miss some things. Nonetheless, in the broader scheme of accessibility problems I would consider both web sites to have accomplished modest accessibility.

The headings are awkward, certainly - overuse of headings isn’t any better than underuse. Since this problem primarily applies to the home page, however, I downgraded it in severity.

I think we definitely agree on the overall problem: the accessibility of these two web sites is grossly insufficient. (In re-reading my text, I do have to agree that “actually quite strong” is an overstatement of the accessibility of the site.)

By: Jim Thatcher

Jim Thatcher — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:23:35 +0000

Good work Joe. Thanks for joining what I hope will be a chorus. I have written about both whitehouse.gov and about recovery.gov.

I am very disappointed with the administration web site accessibility. These should be models of accessibility. I certainly agree with your comments about keyboard access. And there is a humdinger you overlooked. When you leave the site, like going from whitehouse.gov to recovery.gov, you are presented with a light box exit panel which is near impossible to find with the keyboard. You gotta find it to exit!

But I disagree with you about general accessibility. As discussed in the references above, there are very serious issues. For example, you mentioned headings for reasonable in-page navigation with screen readers. Well http://whitehouse.gov has about 28 headings; most of the text that should be a heading is a heading, but so are most of the links, basically negating the value of headings navigation. And more!
Thanks again!