Re: Need help - Quick intranet "style" question (fwd)

["Robert E. Garland" <robert -at- JTAN -dot- COM>]

Christine Fedruk wrote, about her company intranet:

> >I'm not arguing against creativity,
> >but this is an internal company intranet, and our typical reader
> >is a time-pressed technician who just wants to find the latest
> >release notes and figure out what went wrong. Hmm.

A big miss on most web sites, internet or intranet, is using formats
that REQUIRE the latest and greatest browsers, and forget about the
visually-impaired person with a text reader.  Readers do not work well
with frames.  Captioned photos used as links too often appear in text
only browsers as [link] [link] [link].  In fact, our local county-wide
School District Intermediate Unit (a support organization for 13 school
districts) set up it's web page with links to the 13 school districts.
Instead of putting the name of the school district in using the ALT
code, the entire page appeared to lynx as [link] [link] [link] and so on
for 13 repetitions. (Sarcastic comment deleted)

For a company intranet, ask one very important question:  Do we need to
meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Does the Act say anything about computer access for the visually impaired?

For sites accessible to customers, glitz has it's place as a marketing
tool.  For folks needing "just the facts, ma'am" I would go easy on the
glitz and hard on the usability.

Robert