Section 508 Realistic?

[TigerGirl7]

Hi,

I have a potential non-profit client who needs a website rich in multimedia, images, and so on (for marketing purposes). Their IT person injected the following requirements for the website:

- Site should strictly comply with XHTML 1.0 Transitional DTD.

- All layout (static or generated) shall take the form of style sheets (CSS2).

- Tables reserved for tabular data.

- Validation will be performed using the W3C CSS Validation Service.

- All pages shall meet the criteria of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Are these requirements realistic? They seem to me to be a bit "idealistic", or "hopeful". What would you say to a client in this situation?

cheers!

 

[stormbind]

There is a contradiction, but when you consider the problems imposed on you by different quirks-modes, there is a desire to go with a strict DTD (does not matter which version).

Long ago, I saw a site that used exclusively CSS for layout controls.

It looked really boring without CSS, but not bad, and quite nice with CSS. The reason it looked boring was because it was just black text on white background - but this looked better than sites that display rendering errors.

However, as much as I respect it as a solution, I shy away from that aproach because acheiving a very tight and complex layout with only CSS is quite hard and uses a lot of expressions. In contrast, it is a piece of cake to use tables.

Simple example of expressions in CSS
<style>
DIV {height:expression(document.body.offsetHeight);}
</style>

--Glen

Memoria mihi benigna erit qui eam perscribam

 

[Foamcow]

There is even a standards compliant way to have a flash movie replaced by a static image (with proper alt attributes of course) for browsers that cannot use the flash content.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time

 

[Sheco]

You can't really appreciate a client that agrees to accept a standards based implementation until you've had a client with an 80 year old mother still using WebTV.

You are all set for acceptance but at the last minute this guy visits his mum and sees the test site on WebTV.

Then fixng it on the WebTV breaks it on IE3... Fixing it on IE 3 breaks it in NetScape 4 but not in NetScape 3... so on and so forth.

At least with a client like this you can say, "It meets the agreed upon standard, pay me and we can discuss terms for these additional tweaks."


PS: I hate Flash. I hate Flash so much that I almost never go into a site with an Flash intro. Seriously. I close the browser or mash the HOME button. Its not because of bandwidth... it just annoys the heck out of me like fingers on a chalkboard.

 

[trollacious]

I read at one website optimizing site (maybe websitesthatsuck.com ?) that Flash presentations are only enjoyed by two sets of people: those who make them, and those who pay for them. The rest of the viewers usually find them annoying, at best, after the second time viewing them.

Lee

 

[Foamcow]

Flash certainly has it's place. But like any effect/technology it gets overused and often used gratuitously.

Done well, Flash can certainly add to the user experience. The point is that, as a general rule, it shouldn't be essential to the user experience.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Incidentally, you might find this article very handy if using Flash while trying to adhere to standards:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashsatay/

It is a very interesting read.

Hope this helps,
Dan


[tt]D'ya think I got where I am today because I dress like Peter Pan here?[/tt]

 

[vongrunt]

Gotta admit I'm mostly positively surprised with requirements. Some 90+% of clients I've met are WYSIWYG types. They drool over fancy gfx, occasionally insist on (over)using new technologies after reading local IT magazine... and probably think 508 is Peugeot car model.

To repeat - mostly. Looks like people stockpiled their ideas one over another without previous consultation. Such level of orthogonality + marketing rarely fit together. 508 + media-rich content also.

What would you say to a client in this situation? Good. Attractive. Cheap. Pick two

------
"There's a man... He's bald and wears a short-sleeved shirt, and somehow he's very important to me. I think his name is Homer."
(Jack O'Neill, Stargate)

 

[ChrisHunt]

I think you're lucky to have such well-informed clients. Using a particular DOCTYPE, CSS for layout, and validating the lot through W3C should be eminently achievable and - importantly - can be objectively verified.

"Tables reserved for tabular data" is a little more of a judgement call - you may need to be generous in what you classify as "tabular data". It's possible to be too zealous on this point - is a calendar tabular data? It's possible to build one usiong three dozen <div>s, but a (properly implemented) table is more accessible, as well as being easier to put together.

Section 508 compliance is harder to nail down, as there's an element of subjectivity in assessing it. It's easy to check that all images have an [tt]alt[/tt] attribute, but it's a judgement call to determine whether it's a useful alternative to the image. There may be cases where content simply isn't useful in any other format to the original - a map, or a piece of instrumental music can't really be presented in text form, and may not be of interest to those incapable of seeing/hearing them anyway.

Like the guys above say, keeping things simple will make it easier to hit section 508, it'll help visitors (disabled or not) too.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[TigerGirl7]

thank you, this was a great discussion. watch out for my next one...