Re: Awards and award attitude :(

Paul...

This subject is something I consider important, but to tell you the truth, I
have yet to discover a cost-effective way to handle it.  I would be willing
to offer a free included service to new designs, if I could do so without
entirely disrupting my schedule, so it's not a matter of me being too
cheap...:).

To clarify:

The problem is that clients, while not totally unreasonable, want marketable
web sites.  We live in a society with strong visual orientation, and with a
solid foundation in visual entertainment...as I am sure you have discovered
in your own work. I can not (have not yet figured a way to) get the clients
to pay for several hours of extra work preparing and testing their new sites
for every possible type of browser that might hit it.  There just isn't any
way they are going to pay me an extra 10 hours to debug a site for this, not
to mention the fact that I may be suggesting the removal of all the "eye
candy" they want.

I did try providing a "text-only" alternative once, but was told by people
supposedly knowledgeable about such things that this was a poor substitute
for several hours of work making my site validate on a dozen different
browser types.  Now, I don't want to ignore the issue, and I don't want to
subscribe to the "take the money and run" philosophy, but I am somewhat
irritated at the conflict here.  I didn't supervise browser designs, and so
I am stuck with what is, just like everyone else.

Especially irritating is the fact that a text-only page, even if just a
synopsis of the site and perhaps leading to basic, HTML-only order or
contact forms, can be an economical solution.  The same template can be
reused, the copy needs to be manipulated for the primary site only, and with
only a few seconds extra work can be placed on this page.  Do you have an
opinion on this type of approach?

Personally, I would consider Accessibility a primary directive in design, if
I could use CSS.  Since I can't, until such time as the browsers allow it
(probably about the time HTML 5 hits!), then I am still looking for feasible
alternatives.

Darrell

The Web Center
Web Site Solutions
admin(at)webctr.com
www.webctr.com



----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Rudolf <paul(at)ntyc.net>
To: Jim Tom Polk <jtpolk(at)texas.net>; <hwg-basics(at)mail.hwg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 1999 5:49 AM
Subject: Re: Awards and award attitude :(


> Good response!
>
> In my opinion, your description merits at least a monthly post.
>
> The client that triggered my search for this info is one of those that
can't
> understand why it takes more than a couple of days to get listed in the
> major search engines/directories.  (I sure seem to get winners lately!)
>
> The search for information wasn't the heart of my post -- rather finding
the
> hype award sites on a few Web designers' home pages while looking for
> information regarding some of these awards.
>
> I can't think of anything to disagree with, except that I (as I probably
> overstated) have been working with people with disabilities, and to watch
a
> person with severe cerebral palsy struggle to hit the "tab" key 15 times
to
> get through the series of links at the top of a page to get to the "heart"
> of the content of a web site almost brings tears to my eyes.
>
> Just using the theory of "Bobby Approved" doesn't mean you have an
> accessible site, just as mis-using a style sheet for dramatic effects will
> still pass the css validation.  I also don't believe that your (us as
> authors) HTML code has to be perfect in all aspects of validation (at any
> level of HTML), but by running our sites through these validation
> "machines", we can sometimes get a better idea of how our "tricks" could
> fail.
>
> I would rather get refused for these awards and have my clients/customers
> watch this person attempt to navigate their site.  Actually, I would
rather
> have the 3 award presentation sites (mentioned in previous post) watch
this
> person navigate their award winning sites!  Especially the
> "disabilitynetwork.com" site.
>
> It is one thing to have the "design for the majority" attitude and then
> actually work with the people (some of which are quite wealthy) that can't
> get through the assumptions that we as web designers make.
>
> The disabled person I have just mentioned, by the way, shows great promise
> in becoming a good web designer.  If I can only get him away from using
> browser specific toys!  :)
>
> paul
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Tom Polk <jtpolk(at)texas.net>
> To: hwg-basics(at)mail.hwg.org <hwg-basics(at)mail.hwg.org>
> Date: Sunday, September 26, 1999 2:09 AM
> Subject: Re: Awards and award attitude :(
>
>
> >No, you don't need an award winning site. You need to have a good site,
> >and a bit more, but the awards are pure hockum and snake oil (in terms
> >of the awards getting one easy listing on something like Yahoo. Ok, I'll
> >share the guidelines I use when submitting to Yahoo and other human
> >reviewed directories.
>
>
>

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA