Comments on: Site Owners Ignore Requests to ‘Fix The Web’

By: Ranti Junus

Ranti Junus — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:47:20 +0000

Veronique: such tool does exist. WebAIM (http://wave.webaim.org) is the one I use often whenever I want to assess a website. The report shows what was wrong with the coding so it only makes more sense to the web developers. The tool doesn’t show whether the website itself makes sense. As Gail pointed out, user feedback is quite valuable. Combining both type of assessments would be a great way to fix the problem.

By: Gail Bradbrook

Gail Bradbrook — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:44:10 +0000

I run Fix the web and appreciate the comments here.
I did say at the time these are guestimate figures and by no means “scientific”.

I agree with the first and 5th comments.

I would say re the 1st that we may be able to improve out outputs if we could implement some system changes (we are struggling with funds unfortunately. Mainly though, I want reporters to feel that is is worth reporting for a few reasons:
*it takes less than 60 seconds to report, so its not like a big waste of time
*getting the message through to people is part of awareness raising- change will come over time, people may duck a couple of times but realise they have to improve their practice
*as Jim says 1 in 10 is something of value- if we work to volume then we start to make some huge changes across the net.

Its a lot about volume here (and a bit about quality of process too) – so can I keep encouraging disabled people to report and people to volunteer to take issues forwards. Using the toolbar (ATbar) on the front of the site makes reporting even easier.
Gail

(Veronique btw- they exist, user feedback is really valuable though for a number of reasons).

By: Jim Tobias

Jim Tobias — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:52:46 +0000

I actually think that 10% is a great success, considering that the notification comes to the website owner unsolicited. And another 30% that don’t fix it right away are going to be reachable somehow.

By: Veronique Palmer

Veronique Palmer — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:34:14 +0000

You know what would be cool – if you could get someone to build a tool that automatically asesses websites, (if that’s possible). That way site owners could enter their links and get a report. Then your list of people who could fix it would be really handy.

By: Dan Jellinek

Dan Jellinek — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:22:25 +0000

To G F Mueden, above:
I am sorry to hear this – to send out the newsletter we first paste the copy into a plain text editor, then we set the email to plain text as well so there is no HTML or macros or anything and send it out.
The intention is that the email should arrive as plain unicode text, no more and no less, and certainly should be adjustable.
So I’m not sure what more we can do – does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Dan.

By: G F Mueden

G F Mueden — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:01:09 +0000

The shoemakers child is barefoot. E-Access Bulletin came by email in a small light font illegile to my old eyes; it had disabled my accessibility setting for choice of font for incoming text. I had to reset to read in plain text.

The problem is common. The White House always does it; the NYTimes frequently but does provide for feedback.
Google, distributing for others, does it frequently and accepts feedback by snail mail only. My screenshots of one good NYTimes News Alert and on bad on the same day have been forwarded to the as appropriate but it is too soon for a response. I hope they will report what does it. ===gm===

By: Hugh Huddy

Hugh Huddy — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:36:56 +0000

i worry people might lose interest if success is only 1 in 10 – are the ignorers named and shamed somewhere as an incentive to take it seriously?