[thelist] Bobby (was: Accessibility Question)

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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>Martin Burns said:
>> Validation by an automated tool is only ever going to be part of the
>> story, as to be effectively accessible requires understanding what the
>> intent of the page is, and whether the page actually fulfils that for
>> users with disabilities.

>True, which is why eventually I just gave up, and read through the WAI
>guidelines (and couldn't find anything I was doing wrong, though I'll
admit
>it was a briefish scan). It just amused me that in the end it was easier
>checking against WAI myself rather than (trying) using an automated tool.

I find Bobby useful as a first-pass. My site is all template driven, and I
*know* the templates are AAA. However, the content I put into the templates
sometimes suffers typos and rare lapses into laziness. Bobby's good at
picking up when that happens.

When I'm working on clients' sites, I often find that the place which falls
down is also the content entered into the CMS by content managers.

At one level, this is much easier to deal with, as the accessibility
principle is already established. Getting Content Managers to actually *do*
it however can be a bit tricky, as you have to keep checking every edit
until they grasp it.

Developing the client's CMS user training gives you a head start, though,
as you can ensure that only valid, accessible HTML is taught (<strong>, not
<b> etc), that the principle of structural markup is established and that
content managers are discouraged from buying random HTML and 'web design'
books which contain the errors we all know and love.

Start people off with the right habits, and you're 1/2 way there.

Cheers
Martin


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