Re: going out on a limb...

hi jennifer

your approach is commendable

einstein said make things as simple as possible, but no simpler

web page accessibility is a separate career unto itself

not that i would know, i mean, i've only scratched the surface, and i'm not
even making accessibility my career focus


> 1)  I do not use 4.0 or CSS yet as they are not accessible
> to lower-end browsers.  Thus, I have not made the move to
> re-writing everything in 4.0 using CSS.

start applying style sheets to pages you build from now on

because you have kept things simple, this will be easy

since you are used to writing html for accessibility, the concept of styles
as being "outside" the html will definitely appeal to you


>2)  I use certain techniques to make the pages I write accessible,
>these techniques can be seen at http://www.wsc.ma.edu and
>http://www.javanet.com/~eandscon.  I am wondering if I am using 'correct'
>techniques?  For instance, to make my image maps accessible I use alt tags
>for each link as well as an alt tag for the entire graphic...

okay, i took a look at the eandscon home page

the image alt tag "elliott & swartz menu" works, but not the individual
menu item alt texts

not sure if this is just my browsers -- ie4 and nn3 on win95 -- but i can't
get them to show area alt tags at all


> the whole site at the second address also validates under Bobby.
> I also try and include text menus where I can, however since I am
> using the alt tags I am not sure this is necessary...

... i would have to say yes, always include text links somewhere

especially for the benefit of text-only browsers, i've never used one, but
i wouldn't rely on it doing a good job of image maps for you


>The question is, am I practicing good HTML or not

on the whole, yes

you'll want to slowly move away from stuff like <center> (replace it with
<div align="center">) and <dir> (especially since you are not using it for
a list, if you do want a list, use <ul>)

css is frustrating because it is so inconsistent across browsers

font face and colour are quite safe, but font size is a mine field

and don't bother trying to do with positioning what you are now doing with
tables


finally, there are some things that validators won't always catch

for instance, your code calls for newlogo.GIF, but i get a 404 on that file

wanna know why?  because it's called newlogo.gif

trips me up all the time too


all the best

_____________
rudy limeback
http://r937.com/
http://evolt.org/

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