[thechat] rebel without a clause

[Andy Warwick]

On Tuesday, October 29, 2002, at 11:41 PM, Tony Crockford wrote:

> <long, but well constructed argument snipped>

It wasn't meant to be that long when I started, but I rambled...

>> The art is in
>> knowing which aspect of 'design' you are talking about, and bringing
>> someone with opposing view into the golden middle ground.
>>
>> Andy W
>
> Thank you for eloquently making the point that I'd been struggling with
> all day.

<snip>

> I'm working on a site that has as its primary purpose the presentation
> of digitised assets

<snip>

>   It also comes with a heavy burden to meet strict
> accessibility targets and my struggle was with the how and why.  One
> line of yours made it all make sense:
>
> <snip>At the end of the day, a blind-user is not going to get the same
> impact from a art-based site as a sighted viewer. But if you can offer
> him some alternative descriptive text and not simply exclude him...
> </snip>

<snip>

> The art and pictures are there, with lots of text to help with
> understanding and I *will* have pop-ups (deviating from accessibility
> and validation) for the full-size images (600-1200px) so that sighted
> users can see the big image and the full text by arranging their
> windows
> accordingly - we've got some "then and now" comparisons that only make
> sense when you see them side by side

Sounds like a good compromise.

All I'd add is that you make sure that however the links are presented,
it is made obvious that they open in a new window, and that the content
is indicated before its clicked on...

<.a href='blah, blah" >Open a larger image of foo in a new window ( 600
x 400 pixels ).<./a>

I believe this is referred to by Jakob Neilsen as "the rhetoric of
departure".

You might also want to watch for browsers that have pop-ups disabled,
an possibly have alternative links that load the image into the main
window should someone wish to do that instead (or be using a
browser/platform that doesn't follow the 'window' metaphor or has
limited screen space.)

The key thing is not to open additional windows without
warning/permission.

You might also consider doing the opposite (link to a text description
in a new window/on a link) and keep the image in the main window.

Try looking at the longdesc attribute and see if you can kill two birds
with one stone.

	<http://www.cast.org/bobby/html/gls/g12.html>

> Thanks for the enlightenment.

My pleasure; glad it was useful.

Andy W