Continuing the theme of my previous post, Target has just agreed to pay $6 million in damages to a group of plaintiffs (National Federation of the Blind,) because those disabled users could not shop on the Target.com site.

What’s really interesting:

This case wasn’t a  Section 508 compliance issue, as it only applies only to government-funded agencies and their websites.  This class action lawsuit put to test the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, particularly Title III.

The comments about this lawsuit on metafilter are rather interesting, funny, and occasionaly ridiculous.

See Also:

New York Times:
Target Settles Web Suit

San Fransisco Chronicle:
Target will make Web site accessible to blind

I’m very impressed with Xavier’s new site. And there’s more information about the “updated” homepage from the Web Services Department at Xavier. (“Updated” is a much safer term than “redesigned”, don’t you think? Nice choice of words, you savvy Xavier web people)

In particular, I keyed in on the explanation for the big flash feature spot. They explain it this way:

The current “Sights & Sounds” tab, as well as the rotating factoids, will be combined into an interactive Flash area highlighting the many great initiatives at Xavier, including items such as current construction, enrollment dates, deadlines and events, and alumni programs; all with a high-tech twist that include videos, photo galleries and other features.

I’m liking what they’ve done. Very nice. But is it just me, or is everybody jumping on the “let’s put a big flash feature on the top of our university homepage and expend gigantic amounts of development effort to make it conform to accessibility requirements” bandwagon?

And I have absolutely no room to talk. Whatsoever. None. Because I’ve been noodling with a gigantic real estate-hogging homepage flash feature myself. Why? Because it’s cool. And I’m a SlideshowPro maverick. And that first round of accessibility testing? It hurt. It hurt bad. And I’m still in recovery mode.

Screenreaders don’t like flash, and I’ve invested huge amounts of time to try and satisfy the requirements of a flash (SlideshowPro) feature spot being “cool” and compliant at the same time. It ain’t easy folks. And there are quite a few universities deploying homepage flash content that isn’t accessible. And you know who you are.

Anyway, I’m delving into ways of displaying (and hiding) alternate content, using swfobject, and maybe even forgoing the use of SlideshowPro Director for the older SlideshowPro + XML method, and using the xml file not only to control the slideshow but generate alternate content.

It’s a HUGE, all-consuming effort. All for a little bit of flashy homepage glamor. It’s like going out and buying an expensive luxury item. You know you can’t afford it, but you’re dead set on doing it anyway, even if it creates more problems than it solves.

In the end, it’s going to be worth it. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.  I welcome any suggestions or pearls of wisdom or experience you may have to offer.  I think everybody in university web development experiences the same conflict between being fancy and being compliant.

Additional Reading:

Multimedia on Mizzou-Wire
Josh Nichols goes into great detail on efforts to create accessible multimedia. Bookmark it.

Embed Flash or Die Trying
“The most common methods vary along several key dimensions, including standards-compliance, user-friendliness, and universal support. Some methods make it easy to provide alternative content, others enable auto-activation of Flash content, while others feature plugin-detection functionality. In an attempt to round-up the myriad techniques, this article presents nine of the most useful, practical, and popular methods for embedding Flash content.”

Section508 Requirements for “Web-based intranet and internet information and applications”
A list of rules. Build websites for a state university? These rules apply to YOU.

A few months back I posted an incoherent rambling string of thoughts called “other duties as assigned” that sparked an interesting conversation.

Hat tip to whoever made this nice chart:

Moving on…
Ok watch this video,

Then watch this one.

That one example pretty much sums up the beauty of Youtube.

Moving on…

I haven’t been posting much lately due to an intense workload. But I’ll always be adding stuff to my del.icio.us account.

Why Apple doesn’t do “Concept Products – Real artists ship, dabblers create concept products

Interactive Graphics – Interactivity – USATODAY.com – A behind the scenes look at USA TODAY multimededia and design

NPPA: Best of Photojournalism 2008 Web Site Winners – A treasure trove of great audio slideshows. – “The winner will demonstrate a mastery of photographic and visual storytelling in an online environment.”

ESPN – Getting Off The Mat – E-ticket – After losing 15 years of his life to drug addiction and prison, Richard Jensen was reborn as a 36-year-old college wrestler.

In “Night of the Living Dead”, a poor band of outnumbered yet stubbornly resistant occupants of small house courageously attempt to defend said house from stumbling hordes of grotesque zombies.

This is the first metaphor that came to mind when trying to illustrate what it’s like to defend a university homepage against unsavory intruders, and/or things that just don’t belong.

Giving prominence and valuable real estate to content that might only be relevant to a small, select group of internal administration and their comrades, is similar to unsightly zombies getting cozy on your living room couch.

Maybe my tone here is too possessive.  This is not “my” couch. The university landing page doesn’t necessarily “belong” to the web team.  And those zombies, pale and disfigured as they might be, are special and important at least to some people.

Let’s just go back to having homepages comprised of giant lists of links.  The yellow-pages approach.  That way everybody wins.

Your homepage is your storefront?  Nonsense.  It’s your directory!

Avoiding this university website scenario involves realizing that a homepage that tries to be “all things to all people”, will end up being “nothing to nobody”.

It starts back at the critical beginning step of establishing which audience(s) take highest priority (think prospective students), and outlining a core set of “tasks”:

• that YOU want them to perform
• that THEY most often need to perform.

Remembering of course, to provide logical link pathways for all the other stuff.  And pathways to the zombies, which should be, well, buried.