the perfect job

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I won an award for my personal homepage.

It was a rather glamourous award, presented by Telstra and the Australian Financial Review. It's sitting here on my desk with me now. A big glass bauble thing with gold WWW letters circling the orb. It's also very dusty. Well, it is heavy and it's not as though I ogle it every morning.

To this day, I still wonder how on earth I managed to win it. I mean, my site wasn't anything spectacular (although it was fairly unusual back in 1998). I'm convinced that the judges (of whom there was quite a selection of industry big wigs) picked up on my attempt to create a community feeling, and that was back in the days before 'sense of community' became a byword.

My aim was to create a site that explained the ins and outs of HTML and Web Design in a plain speaking, simple to understand way. At the time, sites with a similar purpose were fairly dry and technical.

To make it seem personal, I created a character and a theme and continued this throughout the site, as though she was always watching, always thinking of the audience. She had a fun attitude and she wasn't afraid to show her mistakes as examples of what not to do.

In a way it's funny, because achieving that award got me into the company I now work for. The short version is that someone who knew someone knew that I was looking for a job, and that someone contacted someone who rang me. As soon as he heard about the award, he said, 'Oh, you're xxxx! I know that site - you're hired!' Now, first off, I thought this guy was a fruitcake; fancy hiring someone over the phone!

And it's funny that the transition has come full circle in a way; I started off writing online to teach people and to share my knowledge and now I do the same thing, but on a larger scale, by developing elearning modules and mentoring others to do the same. I write, I edit, design, and build using XHTML, CSS and Standards. I also do all the graphics and animations (Flash). Best of all, people leave me alone to get it done because they trust me and my skills.

I always feel blessed to be doing what I love to do. I never tire of it even though it's tough sometimes to keep up with this ever-changing industry; there's always so much to read and learn.

It's my perfect job - What's your's?

listening to websites

Just read this great article on Observing Users Who Listen to Websites.

In a nutshell:

• Screen reader users scan with their ears; they are just as impatient as the rest of us who visually scan pages
• They listen to links; make them meaningful
• They jump directly to [properly coded] headings
• They want to skip to the main content and bypass navigation; if they understand what the skip links mean
• They hear acronyms and abbreviations as words; if they are not marked up correctly.

"Accessibility is not the same as usability. A site is not really accessible if it is not also usable."

wmode woes

Developing for an IE only user-base can have its upside; you can take advantage of some specific features which are not always available in other browsers, such as the Wmode Flash parameter.
Unfortunately, I've come across some accessibility issues using this handy doovy, which allows the Flash movie to sit transparently on the page, particulary useful with layers (or flyout menus), which are then not obscured, or simply to let the background of the page show through (no color matching issues).

In effect, both Wmode Transparent and Opaque not only render the Flash movie invisible to screenreaders but also remove it from the tab order of the page, even though it still appears. For sighted users who interact with the keyboard, this means that tabbing bypasses the movie - unless they actually click on it with the mouse, which kind of defeats the idea of accessibility.

I had thought that putting focus onto the movie using javascript might help but it doesn't seem to work.

So, ditch this parameter unless your Flash is purely decorative or you are providing alternative content. If there are layering issues with pop-ups etc, then consider opening the Flash in a separate layer or window.

I'm still investigating, but so far this seems to be the lay of the land.

On the otherhand, if you actually DO want to keep Flash content hidden from screenreaders, this could be a possibility...

• WebAIM article on Flash Accessibility
• CommunityMX article on Flash, DHTML menus and Accessibility

desperately seeking standards

Yesterday, at the last minute, I was invited to attend an Accessibility Risk Management Assessment workshop. Sounds like fun, doesn't it. Considering that it was a 5 hour phone hookup...

Actually, I really enjoy the working side of implementing Accessibility features and Web Standards - I'm not much of a one for committee meetings and yabbering on about process etc. But it was nice to be asked.

And why was I asked? Well, it seems that in the enormous company that I work for, I'm the only elearning developer who has bothered doing anything about this side of our work.

We have an inhouse development tool that was designed as a simple no-brainer interface for anyone who wants to put together some content and turn it into an online module. The problem with it though, is that it turns out code that is all over the place and doesn't comply to many Web Standards or allow any tweaking to make it accessible. The menus can't even be tabbed to as they are script driven.

There's also the issue of 'anyone can do it' so anyone does, and these people have no background in online or elearning development and to make it worse, are not given any training or guidelines. It's like letting kids loose in a sweet shop - they go mad.

I hate that tool. I hate it with a vengeance. So, being the rebel that I am, I continue to use my trusty Dreamweaver and Flash. To make myself feel righteous, I mean, to do the right thing, I have completely reworked my templates and rebuilt them in XHTML and filled them full of accessibility and standard goodies. And I've written a bunch of guidelines for the guys in my team based on these and my findings relating to how to implement them in our environment.

Even though the main templates use a frameset (yes, yes I don't want to hear about it - there are darn tootingly good reasons to do so; it's a corporate intranet and the learners are guided straight into the learning module and we don't want them to go anywhere else etc), its all been implemented correctly. We have visible and invisible skip links, we have alt tags, proper tabbing order, onclicks not mouseovers, print styles, ability to increase font size, accessible flash, careful naming of links and on and on...

So, in a way, I know what I'm talking about and can offer some advice, which is why I was asked.

I am a bit concerned about their approach however. The presentation pack was specifically titled 'making the intranet more accessible to visually impaired users'. Now, why target just this group in something could end up being a company wide initiative? And they didn't define 'visually impaired'. Are we talking blind, low vision, colour blind - what? How about staff that can't use a mouse? What about Web Standards to improve all those other things that it does affect - lower bandwidth, device independence, future-proofing? I think they need to get the definition of what they are aiming to do right,before they continue.

The other element they haven't really thought through properly is that the target audience needs to be defined for particular circumstances. My audience is front of house sales consultants who use a myriad of inhouse systems to deal with customer enquiries and product provisioning. Even though I have added things to my templates that would only benefit a blind person using a screenreader, in reality it would be extremely difficult for a blind person to fulfil this particular role simply due to the complex nature of these systems.

For a screenreader to assist such a person, it would take an awful long time just to handle one call, and call handling time is one of the drivers of company revenue - less time with the customer, more customers can be dealt with, therefore increased revenue. To go anywhere near making these systems themselves accessible would be out of the ballpark as far as cost and implementation. No matter how much we would like to go down this path, and have true equality for all, I can't see it happening. So, is it realistic to cater training that is specific to the consultant audience group, to blind people? We would not, for instance, design a car for a blind person, well, not unless we step into some sci-fi realm.

Can we accept that some jobs are unsuitable for some impairments? Not that impaired people are unsuitable for the job - it's not their limitations so much as the limitations of current systems and processes. On the otherhand, we do have extremely visually impaired or blind employees in other roles that suit them very well.

And now back to reading Designing with Web Standards by my old mate, Jeffrey Zeldman as I managed to pick up a really cheap copy on ebay!

poor bud

After my last post I suddenly realised that this situation is not entirely Bud's fault (a fictitious name by the way to protect Bud's real identity or, more to the point, to avoid me getting myself into trouble).

Being shy, I prefer to stay in the background with projects. Give me all the stuff and I will build it but keep me away from meetings and product managers and all that. 'Tis anathema to me. I don't need help and I don't ask for it.

And so, I can't really complain too loudly if Bud becomes the face of my work to the customer.

On the otherhand, if Bud was doing the right thing he would clearly explain what he actually did or did not do in the project lifecycle.

As long as someone, somewhere knows the painstaking detail I go to, then it's okay. So, I told my boss how I feel. I told him I don't need him to do anything about the situation, just to 'know' about it. I told him I was using him to get rid of my 'bad' feelings. I don't think he minds being used.

I can only conclude that Bud needs to take the credit to make himself feel better. Bud must be lacking in self-confidence or need to cling to what others do to feel justified. Or something like that.

In a way, I feel sorry for Bud even though he makes me mad. I wouldn't want to go through life feeling like that. Bud is poor indeed.

Kicking Bud

I know I'm meant to be grown up but I'm a shy kinda grrl and sometimes it's hard to stand up for myself. In particular with a certain person at work.

I work hard (don't play hard) and treat each project I'm given like a special child; I plan it, design it, develop it and release it to the wild with hands clasped in anticipation of its success.

So when someone else continually takes the credit after minimum input, it's hard to take. This person says 'Don't we make a great team?' and I feel like saying 'Team? Waddya mean team, I do all the work around here Bud!'

Bud gives me some starter content.
I restructure it and rewrite it
I research and add to it
I check each detail for accuracy
I design the interface
I set up the structure
I write the CSS and XHTML and validate it
I add all the accessibility stuff
I do the graphics
I do the Flash animations and interactions
I do the testing and testing and testing
I set it up in the LMS

Bud greets the clients and says 'Yes, thank you, it is wonderful isn't it - oh and don't forget to thank my associate - she did help you know...'

I could kick Bud.

But I know I won't.