[WSG] JKRowling.com and the militia

[Stephen Stagg]

so I visited the JKRowling site a while ago and was impressed by the  
design of the new site, easy and fun to use.


Later, I read some comments on this site about Lightmaker and the  
worth of their accessibility methods (or suggested lack thereof)


Recently I re-visited the site and had some difficulty getting on to  
it.  I assume that in response to requests from the accessibility  
party, they have re-designed the site to be more accessible and that  
is a good thing.


However.  Before, visiting jkrowling.com immediately brought up the  
content of the site and the average user could 'get going' immediately.


Now, it presents you with an introduction page full of buttons with  
different languages and accessibility levels.  The most prominent  
button is that for the accessibility-enhanced page.  Don't get me  
wrong, It's GOOD that they are promoting their accessibility mode,  
but still 90% of users visiting the site will not want this mode,  
why make it the default option.  Is added accessibility for people  
with disabilities such a good thing if it reduces accessibility for  
the majority?


Stephen.
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RE: [WSG] JKRowling.com and the militia

[Nic]

 

  Is added accessibility for people with disabilities such a good thing if
it reduces accessibility for the majority?

Well, I think the issue here is that there is no need to reduce
accessibility for others.  There would have been many other ways to approach
this issue from what I see, which would not have made a significant impact
on the pages.

First, the splash page, which I see as being there to offer access to
different languages, rather than just a choice between
accessible/non-accessible.

Second, why not load *only* the page that is accessibility enhanced?  I've
gone through both and there doesn't appear to be a huge difference.  In
fact, the only difference I could find was that one has a few accessibility
options, the other one doesn't.  It is showing poor Vision to think that
only users with disabilities would benefit from those options.  I'm sure
there would have been a way to integrate that panel in the design in a way
that would be unobtrusive (though as is, it's not really that bad).

As for providing a choice to text only version, that could also have been a
small text link at the top of the page, before the flash finishes loading.

So, yeah, making flash pages accessible is difficult, but not impossible.
In this case, you get confronted with many choices before your page loads,
which seem to make it less usable for you, but the problem here is not one
of accessibility, rather, one of how the designer chose to implement the
accessibility of the site.

My 2 cents :)

Nic

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