Web Accessibility (17)

1 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-15 07:19 ID:03p4MDSu

I really hate the notion that to make a website accessible to all you must make it compatible with EVERY browser, must be W3C standard and dial-up must be able to access it with no problems.

I always say instead it should be for what the audience of the website are. If the audience all would happen to have broadband, then I won't give a damn for dial up and lo-fi site.

2 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-08-15 10:22 ID:ltHR6DeZ

This is really just a ploy to get people to make better-looking sites by not putting images everywhere.

3 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-08-15 11:25 ID:Heaven

>I really hate the notion that to make a website accessible to all you must make it compatible with EVERY browser, must be W3C standard and dial-up must be able to access it with no problems.

Then please get out of web design right now!

4 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-15 11:51 ID:Heaven

It suprises me the least to see >>2 and >>3 posting here, as soon as the thread emerges considering neither have any decent web design skills.

5 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-15 13:29 ID:HAkUmj2I

> must make it compatible with EVERY browser, must be W3C standard

The sad thing is that sometimes these two components are mutually exclusive.

6 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E 2005-08-15 13:54 ID:Heaven

The are tradeoffs to be considered. You don't have to write to every browser out there (but you'll limit your audience), nor do you need to write it for 56k (but if that's the case you'll pay more for bandwidth too), nor do you need to be W3C compliant (but it might not work in future browsers).

It's called accessible for a reason. No matter what your opinion on the matter is, nor the choices you make above, the dictionary is fairly clear what that word means. If you limit your audience, it clearly isn't "a website accessible to all".

What's the problem? It's just a word.

7 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-08-15 14:11 ID:Heaven

>>4

Oh, so sorry for fagging up your wondorous thread!

8 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-15 17:32 ID:Heaven

>>1
The W3C standards exist for a reason.
So they can do a backflip and break everything again once enough people comply.

9 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-15 18:45 ID:+vs41i9e

Either support the W3C standard as a minimun, which just about all browsers handle well, or keep up supporting only a single version of only a single browser and tell the rest of your visitors what they can go do with themselves. It's really that simple. Accessibility doesn't mean trying to do something as useless as showing JPEGs to Helen Keller, but it does mean providing sensible alternatives or letting visitors with incapable browsers know what exactly they're missing and why.

As far as accessibility goes, the Kareha powering this board does a very good job: the only thing I found lacking is that deleting posts on a stock Kareha install must use JS. Links can do it, but Lynx can't.

10 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-15 22:03 ID:HamsdJ6H

> Either support the W3C standard as a minimun, which just about all browsers but IE handle well

fixed

11 Name: Mr VacBob!JqK7T7zan. 2005-08-16 00:14 ID:dJ9GCDau

The web would support dialup better if web browsers' TCP stacks weren't so dumb. Safari likes to not cache some images, always tries to fetch more than one image at once, and if/when the website drops the connection (which happens 100% of the time at SA or bungie.org), doesn't try a partial fetch for the rest.

12 Name: Furi!EuK0M02kkg 2005-08-16 03:12 ID:Heaven

>>11
Agreed, but that's sort of missing the point here.

Sorry anon, I'm here to fag up your thread as well.

I think >>9 has summed this up best. At least make your shit work to a reasonable degree, and if a user can't utilise it, they need to be convinced of what they're missing and that it's worth it.

I used to believe in using only the latest and letting everyone else go to hell, but I now know that just doesn't work. When your site's so fancy it'll only work pefectly in version 6.4.3.2.56 of browser XYZ, you're in trouble.

Disappointed that WAHa and Albright are here? Pity that, because shit just happens to work reasonably consistently just about everywhere. That's one thing that'll get you return customers.

13 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-16 05:59 ID:WJXTPQKq

>When your site's so fancy it'll only work pefectly in version 6.4.3.2.56 of browser XYZ, you're in trouble.

Usually true. Even so, even if your site looks and works perfectly in your favorite browser, sticking to the spirit of the W3C standards as much as possible gives you at least some basic assurance that, even if it doesn't look or work perfectly in another browser, it at least looks useably well and still works at all in another browser. And that's really the reason the standards exist at all; that's really the point of all this.

The faults attributed to dial-up have more to do with the server than the client. There are a few servers out there that just plain don't want slow clients connecting to them, either deliberately or by gross misconfiguration of the Web server.

On a side note, thank you >>10 for putting words in my post when you quoted me. I deliberately avoided mentioning IE because every last Web browser in use today still falls short of full standards compliance, even Firefox. The closest browser to perfect right now is Safari in spite of its faults, but that will change. Something even better will take its place; it always does.

14 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-08-16 12:22 ID:xbyrevNU

> The closest browser to perfect right now is Safari in spite of its faults, but that will change.

The unreleased CVS version might be pretty good at handling HTML. However, it is as yet unreleased. Also, Safari's Javascript has numerous serious incompatibilities.

15 Post deleted by moderator.

16 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-08-16 16:51 ID:tX+OUy0y

>>4: Put up or shut up, kiddo. Let's see a link to your marvelous l33t web 5k1llz, eh?

17 Name: #!usr/bin/anon 2005-08-23 21:14 ID:Heaven

>>9 here... I stand corrected. Links the browser doesn't like following javascript: links anymore. :(

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