[thelist] site check: brownecenter.com

[Liam Delahunty]

Rob Sylvan wrote of http://www.brownecenter.com

> Since they would still like for me to do the maintenance for the site, and
> they are all very dear people, I'd like to prepare an assessment of sorts
of
> what I see wrong with this new design.

Positives:
The layout is attractive enough.

Negatives:
1. can't resize the text. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020819.html Let
Users Control Font Size

2. search engines can't see image content

3. can't cut 'n' paste.

4. page titles are next to useless phrases like "theclients", "thepeople"
(sic)

5. The aliasing on some of the text isn't too good, and is difficult to
read, especially on the smaller sizes.

6. File size
http://www.useit.com/about/nographics.html
Download times rule the Web, and since most users have access speeds on the
order of 28.8 kbps, Web pages can be no more than 3 KB if they are to
download in one second which is the required response time for hypertext
navigation. Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading
exceeds 10 seconds, corresponding to 30 KB at modem speed. Keeping below
these size limits rules out most graphics.

7. Can't view it _at all_ in a text only browser like Lynx. (and therefore
'readers' for the blind.)

8. Possible colour blindness issues.

9. Changing text could be a nightmare! You need to find the correct master
image file. Edit the text, export the relevant slice, which may impact on
other slices on the page. So you export the page again and all the slices
and upload the whole lot. Not quite as easy as connecting to the server with
putty, and vi page.html to correct there and then.

10. I think that the JavaScript rollovers haven't been preloaded properly
and I occasionally get a blank [ x ] cell. (Particularly "The Programs").
This is just _so_ unprofessional. Also, is it different for every page? It
doesn't seem to cache at all.

11. Cost: if you pay for the amount of bandwidth use, a site with a load of
images is more expensive to run.

12. main image on home page should link to something!

13. bulleted stuff on main image should be an image map.

14. Why hide most of the navigation in drop downs anyway, when they don't
save on screen space,

15. the logo image in the top cell should be a link to the home page.

16. Good lord, I could go on forever...

There are hundreds of resources on this on the web:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
http://www.useit.com/
http://webaim.org/
http://webguide.ua.edu/access.html
Perhaps also refer to http://www.section508.gov/

Kind regards,
Liam Delahunty

<warning type="advert for game/toy/gift product">
 http://www.corx.co.uk/  :: Tune In :: Drop Down  :: Game On ::
</warning>