Come hither, cutting-edge news site designers…
Posted on January 31, 2008 - Filed Under Design, Accessibility | Leave a Comment
…We want to hear from you. Designing search-engine friendly, fast-loading websites that meet best practice for accessibility, adhere to all the latest standards and display consistently across the widest possible range of browsers without awkward hacks is tricky enough. Creating sites that also meet the multi-faceted demands of a news organisation is a higher order […]
Read More..>>Reflections on the accessibility of news websites
Posted on November 29, 2007 - Filed Under Accessibility | Leave a Comment
From the outset of last week’s series on how accessible the UK’s major newspaper websites are to blind and visually impaired users, we tried to emphasize that this was a subjective study based on the findings of a group of individuals with differing accessibility needs and internet skills.
Some responses to our findings, including that from […]
Accessibility 2.0: The Daily Mail
Posted on November 23, 2007 - Filed Under Accessibility | Leave a Comment
DailyMail.co.uk was the only website reviewed in our series that contained a link to a text-only version of the site.
Removing the graphics from a page will undoubtedly aid screen reader users, but there is debate over whether this is an appropriate accessibility solution for visitors using assistive technologies.
Our reviewer John said he is impressed by […]
Accessibility 2.0: The Sun and The Times
Posted on November 23, 2007 - Filed Under Accessibility | Leave a Comment
When reviewing Times Online and theSun.co.uk for our series on accessibility, we only really skimmed the surface of both sites’ blogging areas.
This was largely because issues of accessibility prevented our user from locating the blogs section on each website. Asking them for their thoughts once I, as a sighted user, had helped locate them would […]
Accessibility 2.0: The Telegraph and The Mirror
Posted on November 21, 2007 - Filed Under Accessibility | Leave a Comment
As far as rating the accessibility of these sites’ audio/video content for the visually impaired in our articles, our reviewer John had difficulty locating the area on each - an instant barrier to accessibility.
However, it’s worth pointing out that among our Dorton College students Telegraph.co.uk’s video offering was a big hit. Josh, who is partially […]
Accessibility 2.0: The Guardian and The Daily Express
Posted on November 20, 2007 - Filed Under Accessibility | Leave a Comment
We knew from the start of this project that there would be some anomalies in our results given the subjective nature of our testing (individuals using different types of assistive equipment with differing degrees of success).
As such, Stephen Dunn, chief technical strategist from Guardian Unlimited, was right to point out that our volunteers had missed […]
Accessibility 2.0: The Independent
Posted on November 19, 2007 - Filed Under Accessibility | Leave a Comment
Carrying out the assessments of the UK’s main newspaper websites for this week’s features on website accessibility for the blind, each site had its own advantages and disadvantages.
In the planning of this project, several web accessibility specialists stressed to me that improving the accessibility of a website for blind users, would improve its usability for […]
Why the front page is still relevant
Posted on November 19, 2007 - Filed Under Accessibility, Online Journalism | Leave a Comment
When the incremental overhaul of the Guardian.co.uk enveloped the site’s homepage earlier this year there was much talk of the growing irrelevance of newspaper websites having a ‘front’.
Why a front when so many readers/users/visitors/viewers come in though the side door of search and RSS feeds?
Jeff Jarvis quoted figures that as few as 20 per cent […]
