[thelist] Site check please rocky-hills.com

[Christian Heilmann]

> > Have you ever had real clients or project managers
> > breathing down your neck for the release of a site and "make sure it
> > works for us and the CEO of the client's company"?
> 
> I wouldn't even consider working for anyone who does not consider
> universal accessibility a primary design objective. My objective is
> making the web less difficult to use, not contributing to a serious
> problem.

That is exactly what I am striving for, but instead of bitching from
an ivory tower I try to change it where it is done. If noone who
really wants a usable, accessible and available web would get his
hands dirty and compromise, webdesign would still be Frontpage and
other out of the box solutions. Ever tried to make a valid, accessible
.NET solution? And don't tell us noone needs that, as 1.5 million
pound of revenue last year says different on the projects I have done
alone.
 
> > Only by helping _step by step_
> 
> I disagree if what you say means that every respondant needs to address
> every flaw found in detail. I take the macro approach. If you can't see
> what's there, nothing else really matters.

That is like taking a picture  and dismissing it as art because the 
frame is ugly. Or dismissing Bach as an artist because you are deaf.
Or considering a newspaper like the Guardian bad writing because their
sentences exceed 5 words each. A macro approach does not give any hint
how to fix things. What I mean is that designers need to be shown good
examples step by step and pointed to good resources, not  being told
that their font size is wrong. If the font is too small, then please
do also point them to the CSS-D wiki, where the font issue is nicely
explained step by step or
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/typography/ . We got more
and more developers to stop creating tagsoup by showing the
versatility of CSS in CSSZenGarden. Now we need to show them how to
make flexible CSS and clean scripts.

> > [1] http://www.devilsdetails.com/
> 
> Ouch! How's anyone going to learn accessibility when they keep getting
> pointed to example sites poisoned with font-size: 11px; in body? I hope
> you remember not everyone creating web pages yet knows that IE is not
> the only web browser.

Ouch! Stop taking things out of context to plug more font evangelism.
And where did te IE thing come from? Accessibility is about so much 
more than font sizes - there are technical ways around the font size
issue. As you conveniently deleted, I wondered where a devil's detail
for usable designs was, no need to repeat that this resource is not
about accessibility but about design features. And talking of  this:
Where is a good accessibility resource that also looks great to the
designer's eye? The nice wrapper is part of a present and a good cover
is part of the book.

Want to know what issues there are with accessibility and commercial web sites?
I collected client feedback from real clients - not other developers -
over the last three years:
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/ten_reasons_clients_dont_care_about_accessibility/