July 16, 2004 | View Comments (9) | Category: Web Experience
Summary: When will companies learn that accessibility is no longer an option, but a necessity for a popular site?
To get the background information of what I am going to talk about please visit these posts at Andy's and Lee's sites.
I don't have any numbers, but let us assume that the web has become the medium of choice for finding information and will only continue to grow stronger as time goes on. I know when it comes to checking the weather, stocks or movie times I turn to the web. All these actions can be accomplished by using other mediums such as TV or a newspaper, but the web makes my life easier and I appreciate it when companies go out of their way to make my life easier.
When you run a site such as the CSS Vault you do come across a lot of bad sites in your inbox. However, the number of designs that I get that are better than 90% of the sites a couple of years ago is overwhelming. Design is getting better and the major sites are turning to CSS to make life better for themselves and their users. Right when you think everything is going well, someone messes up.
Matthew Somerville created an accessible version of a site that is used by a lot of people from what I can tell on the feedback that he is receiving. The issue is not whether or not he should be allowed to keep the site up, the issue is why isn't Odeon doing something to fix their site. Not too many companies are fortunate to have their customers not only maintain loyalty to them, but to also create something better without paying them or even asking for it.
These are the times it would be great to get in the mind of the top corporate people to see what they are thinking. Does it even cross their mind that maybe they could use the work and not only keep the people who currently use their site, but increase the audience by making it more accessible for everyone?
That is what I always enjoyed about CSS. Even though it may not render properly everywhere, you are still assured that your readers can see something and use the site. Once you start creating sites that do not work (as in DO NOT WORK) on modern browsers, you have to figure something is wrong. Instead, what we get are excuses from companies as to why something had to be the way it was.
Even though you are using a browser released in the year 2004 and supports the majority of all W3C specifications, we require that you use at least a browser released on July 12 of 2000, because for no other reason we forgot to buy the 2004 edition of JavaScript for Dummies.
Okay you don't really get that message from AMG, but you do get the “This site requires...” message. Silliness.
We're a small company from Ann Arbor, MI, trying to provide a great resource for music fans.
This statement for about half a second makes you think okay that maybe it's justified for them to come out with their redesign from hell. But then, yes then, some guy named Tim creates a duplicate of your homepage in CSS in about 2 hours. I have to assume that Tim is a smaller company than AMG. I have been wrong before however.
It's one thing to create an ugly site that no one wishes to look at, but when you are a company that has a loyal customer base, how could you not put your best foot forward when it comes to your site. To say it comes down to money is confusing to me since creating an accessible site opens it up to more people. More people. More money.
To say yo don't have the resources for such a task is also confusing.
As a competitor though you have to smile at these kinds of things. Let everyone else make a lame excuse as to why they have to shut people out of their website completely, you can just continue to extending your hand to these folks and welcoming them to your site.
As much as we read and practice standards and accessibility on a daily basis, it always stings to see others completely ignore these topics. Hopefully, over time all companies understand that these do not become an added feature of their site, but a neccessity for survival.
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It has been said before and it will be said again. Much of the freshest work on the web in terms of standards and accessibility is being done by smaller shops, independents, freelancers, bloggers and the like. That's not to say it is exclusively in their realm, but for the most part that is where it is happening.
There are a number of factors at work here - not the least of which are habit and awareness. Habit because once you are in them it is hard to get out of them - and it works both ways, even for us. Those of us that work with, embrace and advocate Web standards and accessibility have a difficult time seeing why anyone would do things any other way. Likewise, those that aren't aware of the issues (likely most people that are in this profession that aren't regular readers of, or, contributors to, the blogosphere) have their own habits - both in the way that they do things and in the way that they see things. Spacer gifs, the font tag, browser sniffing, and indenting with blockquotes still exist. I don't like it, I don't accept it, but others do, and it is how they put food on the table.
I agree completely that Odeon really should be doing a better job on their site and there is no excuse. I agree that All Music needs to get with it as well. While Tim did knock out another version of the site in two hours, we can't forget that we know nothing of the back end system that generates what we see up front. I'm not defending them, and I certainly think they need to get with it too - they may not be in position to do anything about it right now.
Both Odeon and All Music are now very much aware of the issues -- they are getting press internationally, and it is being written about on many blogs. The true test is to see how their sites stack up 3 or 4 months from now -- how, exactly, are they going to react to all of this?
feather (http://boxofchocolates.ca)
Thanks for the write up. I was so pissed at the AllMusic site modifications, mostly because it does less than what was done before. So you added a few features that were requested, by what removing full access from other major browsers. Let's not even mention the temerity of a web designer do a web site makeover specifically for a browser that even the Department of Homeland Security is warning people not to use.
allgood2 (http://www.wide-eyed.org)
It appears that the Odeon website is in contravention of UK Disability Law. What I find odd in this case is that no-one has taken them to court.
If their cinemas were unable to cope with the needs of a wheelchair user, I think we'd see some pretty rapid action, so why not here?
-
I keep hearing about this allmusic.com website problem, but I haven't actually seen the problem, in my XP/Firefox.
Can someone put the error chain up so I can see it?
pid (http://www.pidster.com)
Pid, the error message is no longer displayed on Allmusic.com when you visit with FireFox. Earlier in the week the message saying the site requires IE 5.5+ did show up in FF. I'm guessing they removed it after all of the feedback they got (including one from me).
However, the javascript browser detect code is still there. View the souce for the home page and scroll to the bottom and you'll see it.
JonathanB
You may all have seen this but there's an article about the Odeon here. It mentions the IMDB redesign.
Peter (http://www.01010.org/)
All Music Guide ??? Now it is the All Pop-up Guide 75% of the time. I attempt to access their site and get an add blocker (blocking Avenue A) and the banner ad from the top of their page ... that's it ... nothing else. What a waste of what HAD been a decent, though not perfect, site.
Bob
The All Music Site gets a little funky in Safari on some pages, wouldn't matter anyway, won't work on my Mac if I buy anything I don't think.
Ironically, I had this discussion with a corporate web designer at http://www.uline.com/ - their site does some sick 60+ million in sales, and when we were talking, I brought up that he had some coding errors in the site that we could go over which would fix things a bit -- I also mentioned that down the road, a simple redesign to clean XHTML/CSS would help the pages load faster, and not be too much trouble since they are straight template anyway. That got me a firestorm of comments -- him telling me that I wasn't advanced enough to be giving that advice since I'm obviously a novice developer if I use PHP (he uses ASP, and says Open Source can't compare to other technologies - a completely different discussion, but a little biased) -- and that CSS is all to common now adays, no big deal, everyones a critic, and CSS is a useless technology.
Needless to say, I almost needed to change my shorts -- I didn't mean it as rude, it was a discussion about improving the site and he asked my input... but it sure gave me some insight into who some of these multi-million dollar companies are highering to do their websites, and the mindset that goes on there.
I would've understood a simple 'Our CMS system is bloated and hardwired into our site, that sounds interesting, but it'd take us a long time to get anywhere with a new layout contstruction' -- but to brush it off as a fledgling technology that is useless tells me that some of these guys don't take the time to learn -- sure don't keep up to date -- and are either very stubborn or very scared of losing their jobs. And I think there's a lot of that out there - people saying that W3 standards are junk not to be taken seriously -- why they think this way, I don't know, but it just may be a few old coders that don't want to learn new tricks, and would rather tell people their stupid than admit they could improve their methods... lord knows I can improve mine.
Brady J. Frey (http://www.dotfive.com)
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#1
Being much more productive - with *fewer or existing* resources, is the reason more people that I've worked for have agreed to implement web standards. Cross-browser/device, accessibility, etc., is nice, but they don't really care. They hear "more for my money" and they get excited.
I can't see any excuse coming from developers for not championing standards-compliant code and supporting all browsers. Especially if they didn't shut out other browsers before! You said it well - even if it doesn't display perfectly in the browsers you didn't care about in the first place, at the very least your customers can use your service! (If for nothing else but to complain).
ant (http://www.amdesign.com)