Re: Team Excellence Award Winner

  • From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:40:02 +0200

Hi Léonie,

You didn't understand me. It is not that I don't like or like a certain site.

I like your site and I also like the site made by other members of this list, because they are simple, with no stupid images put there only for making the site look nicer for the sighted, with no useless javascript code that makes the site appear more "dynamic", with no Flash code that just shows something moving...

But if I ask my sighted colleagues, and from the opinions I've read in the last time from the clients of the company I work for, most of them don't like those simple pages, and prefer those considered "nice-looking" only because they have a lot of Javascript, Flash, AJAX widgets, images and so on. This is considered to be the "future" of the web, and not the standard html-only web pages with some images and a little javascript.

I found that usually the specialists in iT like the standard pages, because they usually find easier what they need in those pages, because they usually need to use the web only for reading some news, download some programs/drivers/other kind of files, while the whole rest of the world use the web mostly for social activities... with other words for spending their time. For most of the users, the web is a kind of interactive TV and a way of creating new relations, and the web environment should look nice in the first place, and not respect standards, work correctly for everyone, work fast, be accessible for the disabled or other "unimportant things" like these.

This also depend on the country we are located. Maybe in some countries the companies are really searching for web designers that know W3C's recommendations, know how to make an accessible web page, because the laws from those countries impose that, and maybe those laws are really respected. But this is not the case in all the countries at all.

In my country the companies usually don't care about the accessibility problems, and there is no law that impose that. There was a law proposal in this direction, but it was not voted, because there was no suficient power to sustain it.

So, with or without such a law, the most important thing is to make a page looking nice from the sighted point of view, and not accessible, or that respects standards, because otherwise no client company will like it.

There are good web designs company that try to teach their clients what is considered to be good, but it is very hard for them because their clients prefer a page that's moving and jumping in order to catch the attention... no matter that some specialists tell them that in the case of such pages, the attention is distracted to non important things, and not attracted to the most important part of the page.

But... this is the situation, no matter if we like it or not.

Octavian

----- Original Message ----- From: "Léonie Watson" <tink@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:20 PM
Subject: RE: Team Excellence Award Winner


Teddy,

At the risk of opening myself up for comments based on whether you
*like the designs or not, please take a look at my website.
http://www.tink.co.uk/

It was developed by myself, with no visual assistance. I am
completely blind.

The site has three visual looks. The layout, colour scheme and
artwork differs for each skin. You can select the skin you prefer through
the style switcher.

Regards,
Léonie.
-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of inthaneelf
Sent: 28 November 2007 19:46
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner

teddy, the old point that this references is that this blind gentlemen...
made a website that is compliant to the accessibility standards... and was
given an award by sighted reviewers, *sigh*

I...
. For Blind Programming assistance, Information, Useful Programs, and Links
to Jamal Mazrui's Text tutorial packages and Applications, visit me at:
http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com
. to be able to view a simple programming project in several programming
languages, visit the Fruit basket demo site at:
http://fruitbasketdemo.alacorncomputer.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 7:57 AM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner


In my country there is a very well known yearly contest named Internetics.
Well, most of the sites that get awards in that contest, are horrible from
the point of view of the blind. So a contest only doesn't mean anything.

Please tell us where can we see the web page made by that blind guy, and I
will tell you if a blind person can do it without sighted help.
I've seen many messages on this list telling how cool web pages can a
blind do, with with no single example.

Octavian

----- Original Message ----- From: <james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 3:42 PM
Subject: Team Excellence Award Winner



Hi All,
Where I consult, one of our fellow listers was on a team who won a very
prestigious award. The team developed a highly visible web application.
Jeff Fidler designed and coded the GUI interface for the site using HTML,
CSS and Javascript. He used Section 508 and W3C techniques and the
sighted
people in the company rave about it.

I write this to urge anyone who thinks that someone who is blind cannot
design Web interfaces well to keep on trying. You can do it.

Jim

James D Homme, , Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810

"Never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the
world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead

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