[musictlk] Inaccessible online contact forms and Websites

[Kerry Thompson]

Hi friends,

Sorry for not being around for a while.

Joshua, I agree with you completely about inaccessible web sites. It 
does need to be pointed out, though, that the musician or singer whose 
site it ostensibly is doesn't have anything to do with the design 
andmaintenanceof the site. So, don't blame the musician. It's the 
webmaster you need to contact about accessibility issues.

I also hate sites that have music that starts as soon as you land there. 
And, as you say, worse are sites where you can't shut off the music. 
Engelbert's old site was like that. I wrote to the contact address, 
which turned out to be his fan coordinator, and suggested a minor 
adjustment in the page coding that would let the visitor turn the music 
on and off. The fan coordinator was very nice and said she'd pass my 
suggestion on to the web team. I don't know if it's coincidence or my 
influence, but the new web site does not include music that comes on 
automatically and can't be switched off.

You've probably discovered this, but often the music is only on the home 
page. If you can manage to get to another page in the site, you should 
be all right. A well designed site has all the site links either on 
every individual page or on the main page of every section, so you don't 
really need the home page.

Your point about accessibility is well taken. With one glaring 
exception, all the instructors I had for Web Tech classes stressed that 
accessibility and usability, which are related but different,should 
always be part of good design practice. Unfortunately though, an awful 
lot of people who design and maintain web sites don't seem to have been 
taught this concept. Nor, apparently, have they heard of the W3C (the 
World Wide Web Consortium), which is just such a standards body as you 
mention. Adhering to W3C standards ensures that your site is correctly 
constructed and well designed. That in turn pretty much guarantees that 
it is maximally usable and accessible. But, you can't force people to 
conform to W3C guidelines, more's the pity. All you can do is write to 
the individual sites you visit and point out their usability and 
accessibility shortcomings.

Mike, I don't think it matters whether you're using SAPI, say, or an 
external synthesizer. This is a basic web design element. If a 
designer/developer is going to use music on a site, he darned well ought 
to know how to use it properly. That means setting it up so it can be 
turned off by the visitor, or better yet (best practice) left as an 
element the visitor can activate or not, at the visitor's choice. The 
problem, as I said before, is that a great many people who create and 
maintain web sites don't, in fact, know what they're doing. They don't 
even run their pages through HTML and CSS validators, much less make any 
attempt to meet the W3C's accessibility guidelines. Either they don't 
know or they don't care that badly formed code doesn't run optimally on 
anyone's browser.

As I said before, accessibility and its parent concept, usability are 
essential elements of good web design. The problem is that far too few 
people know what constitutes good web design let alone actually practice 
it. It's not something that we as blind Internet users need, it's a 
standard that simply is not striven for most of the time. Like you, 
though, I don't know anyway to make people understand and implement the 
concept. The W3C has no enforcement powers. All they can do is 
promulgate standards and hope people pay attention to them. There's no 
way to make people pay attention to them. All anyone can do, as you and 
I have both pointed out, is to contact each web site as we come across 
it and politely ask that they resolve their accessibility issues. 
Suggesting that the webmaster or web team take a look at the W3C's 
standards and guidelines would be a good idea as well. Spreading 
awareness of the W3C is always a good thing.

Kerry