sore_fingers
26th November 2002, 02:52
So many PTRs out there have web design that is not only bad or ugly, but broken, botched, and unusable by the disabled. You wouldn't run a real world business and not include ramps and safety bars for the disabled, why run a website that doesn't either? There are a lot of disabled members of these kind of sites, and with the turnkey nature of some of the scripts, and some of the bad code from ill fated customisation attempts, many disabled people will find sites unusable or extremely inconvenient. Also, many people do not have the desire to use Internet Explorer due to the many bugs and security flaws it contains, and many people still use IE-only HTML featuers or non-standards compliant code, which can cause problems for those who'd rather use Netscape/Mozilla or Opera. There is a free tool that will validate the HTML and also scan for code that could be problematic for those using voice browsers, braille browsers, and other such accessability technology. Unfortunately this tool is now in the hands of a profit company, rather than in the hands of cast.org which first developed it. However it can still be used online to scan one page at a time for problems, for free. The ability to scan an entire site for problematic code is unfortunately now limited to a paid version of a downloadable software, which is a pretty rotten thing IMO. The tool called Bobby can be found at the URL below. I know many PTR owners buy a site "prebuilt" and quite a few of them really don't understand HTML and CSS standards all that well, or else they use labor-saving editors such as Frontpage which can make code that is extremely unfriendly to alternative browsers and technology used by the disabled. I urge all program owners to give their sites a "checkup" just to see what problems might exist, the Bobby tool will not only find the problems but will suggest solutions that will make the site easier to use for the disabled or those who do not wish to use Micro$oft's browser. I suggest that no one actually buy the product-why support a company that is making money off of a tool that was once a free and important public service, intended to help the disabled? A site that meets Bobby compliance is also validated for WAP and WebTV as well.
http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp
http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp