View Full Version : @media 2005: Web Standards and Accessibility
I don't suppose any of you are going to this (http://www.atmedia2005.co.uk/), but I was lucky enough to get my hands on a free ticket. I am quite pleased to be given the ticket, but now I'm not so sure. Seems a bit stale, what do you think? I've never been to these events before:
"Authors, pioneers, visionaries and downright mighty web designers and accessibility experts from the UK and abroad will be coming to the conference. Speakers from overseas include Jeffrey Zeldman, accessibility guru Joe Clark and designer extraordinaire Douglas Bowman, who will be joining the cream of the UK crop."
Normally £350 for a ticket :eek:
Buddy Bradley
26-01-2005, 20:36
Stale, seriously?? :eek: :eek:
Literally the top web standards designers and accessibility experts in the world coming to the UK to speak - I'll be there with bells on! Hopefully I'll be able to pursuade work to pay for it.
£350? Not a fucking chance!
And look at the homepage of one of their 'experts': http://adactio.com/ - and some of his web work (http://www.saltercane.com/) isn't exactly a glorious advert for accessible design either.
Buddy Bradley
26-01-2005, 20:45
And look at the homepage of one of their 'experts': http://adactio.com/ - and some of his web work (http://www.saltercane.com/) isn't exactly a glorious advert for accessible design either.
What's your point, Mike? Jeremy Keith's a well-respected commenter on web standards, particularly scripting (AFAIK he's not an accessibility expert). It's hardly as if your homepage is the most beautiful in the world - it's the content that counts (in both cases).
What's your point, Mike? Jeremy Keith's a well-respected commenter on web standards, particularly scripting (AFAIK he's not an accessibility expert).Yes, but I'm not charging people £350 to hear me talk about 'web standards and accessibility', am I?It's hardly as if your homepage is the most beautiful in the world.Oh. Get you!
To be honest, I would expect higher standards of 'web standards and accessibility' than this for my £350: http://www.mudlow.co.uk/, although I'm sure he's a lovely bloke and I'm being too picky.
Buddy Bradley
26-01-2005, 20:56
Yes, but I'm not charging people £350 to hear me talk about 'web standards and accessibility', am I?
Bet you would do if you could get away with it! :D ;)
Bet you would do if you could get away with it! I don't think I'd have the nerve actually!
I do my best to make my sites as accessible as possible, but there's a limit to what you can do when you're knocking 'em out in your spare time - and I'd rather bang the pages out than use up more precious time trying to update old pages and battling with <div> tags.
I've had emails from disabled users and they seem to be able to access most of the site, but if there was anything that was really causing major problems I would endeavour to fix it.
Wintermute
27-01-2005, 12:51
Hmm. I'm sure there would be some good networking opportunities (and no, i don't mean the sort that require a few meters of Cat5), and the food will probably be good. But the content? Just read alistapart. Half the people speaking seem to write the articles for them anyway. Having a bunch of web developers meeting up to talk about how to code clean, accessible sites... it just seems a bit like... I dunno. Having a conference for public speaking techniques over IRC? We're fucking web developers, everything we do is on the net. What are they going to do? Show us some slides of font tags and we all go "boooo" and then show us a slide of a window.onload event handler and we all go "yaaaay"?
Stale, seriously?? :eek: :eek:
Literally the top web standards designers and accessibility experts in the world coming to the UK to speak - I'll be there with bells on! Hopefully I'll be able to pursuade work to pay for it.
See Ed's post why I said stale ;)
Hmm. I'm sure there would be some good networking opportunities (and no, i don't mean the sort that require a few meters of Cat5), and the food will probably be good. But the content? Just read alistapart. Half the people speaking seem to write the articles for them anyway. Having a bunch of web developers meeting up to talk about how to code clean, accessible sites... it just seems a bit like... I dunno. Having a conference for public speaking techniques over IRC? We're fucking web developers, everything we do is on the net. What are they going to do? Show us some slides of font tags and we all go "boooo" and then show us a slide of a window.onload event handler and we all go "yaaaay"?
That is the other side of it, if I do go along I'd feel like I was being taught to suck eggs or I am hearing what I've already read. Rather arrogant attitude to take, but I've exhausted myself on usability.
Still, its free and I'm sure there'll be loads of freebies and stands :)
I Emailed them, asking if they do student discounts / group discounts and finished off the email with a little dig, this is Vivabit's reply:
Dale wrote...
> ...the event should be more accessible to those starting off inthe
> industry, rather than those already established and wealthier outfits,being
> the ones who can afford to purchase the ticket?
Unfortunately, we can not offer discounts at this time.
Much as we would like as many people to come as possible, there are
considerable costs involved that we must cover. If we didn't, the event
couldn't go ahead at all in the first place!
Regards,
Patrick Griffiths
It is a shame because this kind of thing is exactly what first year students doing new media / digital media / interactive media or whatever you want to call it should attend.
Buddy Bradley
31-03-2005, 18:00
I finally got work to stump up the money to pay for me to go to this - is anyone else still going/thinking about it? Firky?
Nah :(
I wish. I Really wish I was, hope you enjoy it - gluck :)
<cheeky>
did work pay £350 or the £450 price?
</cheeky>
;)
FridgeMagnet
31-03-2005, 18:35
Obviously, anyone going will have to do a realtime update of each lecture. With photos.
I mean, that's the bare minimum - you should really be doing streaming video of the event.
Buddy Bradley
01-04-2005, 11:08
<cheeky>
did work pay £350 or the £450 price?
</cheeky>
;)
Just squeaked in with the earlybird registration - a little over £400 with the VAT. Plus they'll be stumping up for my travel and accommodation while I'm down there (although unfortunately not the drinks...)
lozmatic
01-04-2005, 12:16
£350? Not a fucking chance!
And look at the homepage of one of their 'experts': http://adactio.com/ - and some of his web work (http://www.saltercane.com/) isn't exactly a glorious advert for accessible design either.
What I don't understand is why themes such as sci-fi, default and renaissance are offered as options to the user. What's the point exactly? Changing the skin can be a good option if the end results are useful, like a skin where font is bigger and easier to read for those who have bad eyesights. In the case of adaction.com it's a complete waste of time and rather unprofessional: here we have an expert in accessible sites that includes a feature that could be potentially useful but uses is as a teenage web designer would.
Another site that bothers me is webcredible (http://www.webcredible.co.uk/). They say...
Web credibility - so your website is trustworthy and you can build up a long-term relationship with your site users
While their site and logo is a complete rip off of one well known e-tailer (http://www.amazon.co.uk/).
Gotta laugh.
While their site and logo is a complete rip off of one well known e-tailer (http://www.amazon.co.uk/).Wow! That's some rip off!
A prefect candidate for http://www.pirated-sites.com/ (where there's examples of Eme's goldtop.org and urban75 rip offs)
I've just dropped them a line: "It doesn't do the credibility of your company much good when it's clearly a near perfect rip off of Amazon, y'know!
Similar colours, same tabs, very similar logo and identical layout...."
To be honest, I would expect higher standards of 'web standards and accessibility' than this for my £350: http://www.mudlow.co.uk/, although I'm sure he's a lovely bloke and I'm being too picky.
Heh! How shite is that site!!
lozmatic
01-04-2005, 14:17
Wow! That's some rip off!
I've just dropped them a line: "It doesn't do the credibility of your company much good when it's clearly a near perfect rip off of Amazon, y'know!
Similar colours, same tabs, very similar logo and identical layout...."
Keep ud updated on their response, if any.
Wow! That's some rip off!
A prefect candidate for http://www.pirated-sites.com/ (where there's examples of Eme's goldtop.org and urban75 rip offs)
I've just dropped them a line: "It doesn't do the credibility of your company much good when it's clearly a near perfect rip off of Amazon, y'know!
Similar colours, same tabs, very similar logo and identical layout...."
Hahaha :D
Superb!
Buddy Bradley
02-04-2005, 15:02
What I don't understand is why themes such as sci-fi, default and renaissance are offered as options to the user. What's the point exactly? Changing the skin can be a good option if the end results are useful, like a skin where font is bigger and easier to read for those who have bad eyesights. In the case of adaction.com it's a complete waste of time and rather unprofessional: here we have an expert in accessible sites that includes a feature that could be potentially useful but uses is as a teenage web designer would.
*sigh*
As I noted above, Jeremy Keith (Adactio is his personal site) is not an "accessibility expert"; he is on the @media programme to talk about DOM-scripting. And what he chooses to do with his own personal site is completely irrelevant to his expertise in any particular area - would you decline to hire FridgeMagnet for coding work simply because the design of his personal blog is a little sparse?
Do you bother reading things before holding forth on them? :rolleyes:
Buddy Bradley
02-04-2005, 15:05
Wow! That's some rip off!
A prefect candidate for http://www.pirated-sites.com/
Grasping at straws a little, aren't you? Are you going to accuse every single site that uses tabs for navigation of ripping off Amazon?
"Dear Apple..." :rolleyes:
lozmatic
02-04-2005, 15:24
*sigh*
As I noted above, Jeremy Keith (Adactio is his personal site) is not an "accessibility expert"; he is on the @media programme to talk about DOM-scripting. And what he chooses to do with his own personal site is completely irrelevant to his expertise in any particular area - would you decline to hire FridgeMagnet for coding work simply because the design of his personal blog is a little sparse?
Do you bother reading things before holding forth on them? :rolleyes:
Yeah, you're right. But in the context he is giving the speech one would expect him to have an expertise in the field... if not why book him?
I overreacted to the use of skins... that I despise as much as I despise flash intros. Apologies to Mr. Keith.
Buddy Bradley
02-04-2005, 16:55
The conference is about:
1) Web Standards
and
2) Accessibility
Keith's expertise falls under subject 1, not subject 2. Javascripting is inherently inaccessible anyway, due to the fact that not all users will have it available/enabled and many assistive technologies do not support Javascript, so if you're going to take the attitude that anyone speaking at the conference must be an expert in both areas then DOM scripting would never be covered at all.
Buddy Bradley
02-04-2005, 16:56
I overreacted to the use of skins... that I despise as much as I despise flash intros.
*cough* (http://www.csszengarden.com/) :p
Grasping at straws a little, aren't you? Are you going to accuse every single site that uses tabs for navigation of ripping off Amazon?You don't think they're astonishingly similar? Same colour, same layout - even their logo is suspiciously familiar!
I'm clearly not alone in thinking it's a bit of a rip.
Grasping at straws a little, aren't you? Are you going to accuse every single site that uses tabs for navigation of ripping off Amazon?
"Dear Apple..." :rolleyes:
it is a very strong 'imitation' though, the colour scheme, the layout, logo... hhmm
lozmatic
02-04-2005, 22:00
The conference is about:
1) Web Standards
and
2) Accessibility
Keith's expertise falls under subject 1, not subject 2. Javascripting is inherently inaccessible anyway, due to the fact that not all users will have it available/enabled and many assistive technologies do not support Javascript, so if you're going to take the attitude that anyone speaking at the conference must be an expert in both areas then DOM scripting would never be covered at all.
Subject matters that are very closely related. And I think that any professional involved in designing or coding web interfaces should a good knowledge of accessibility issues. An expert in DOM should be aware of what happens to a web page when Javascript is disabled. Anyway, I was wrong to assume Keith to be an expert in accessibility. I hope he is, though. For the sake of all those who oay quite a high price to attend.
I like the css Zen site and how it shows people, by example, what can be achieved with css. On Keith's peronal site the same thing occurs, but not for any particularly good reason. As on www.excite.co.uk/ (http://www.excite.co.uk/). A complete waste of time, in my opinion.
FridgeMagnet
02-04-2005, 22:08
I do think that site is rather Amazon-derivative to be honest. At the least, it's very unoriginal design-wise. On the other hand, I don't mind the Mudlow site, and the code is certainly written by someone aware of accessibility issues.
(I *like* my blog how it is... I'm not trying to sell anything of course.)
lozmatic
02-04-2005, 22:25
Grasping at straws a little, aren't you? Are you going to accuse every single site that uses tabs for navigation of ripping off Amazon?
"Dear Apple..." :rolleyes:
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/images/logo.gif
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/G/02/uk-shared/logos/amazon-logo-151x32.gif
Too similar, in my opinion.
stdPikachu
02-04-2005, 22:45
I think that any professional involved in designing or coding web interfaces should a good knowledge of accessibility issues.
Hear fucking hear! Web standards and accessibility are two sides of the same coin, and IMHO you can't be an expert in one without having a fairly good understanding of the other. Any site that's got a huge "best viewed at X by Y resolution on Internet Explorer 5+, requires Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, JavaScript, Java and the kitchen fucking sink du jour" is, by definition, limiting accessibility.
Some of the examples listed above fall into the trap of using Flash for navigation. Whilst most people will have it installed, user with disabilities will usually find themselves up shit creek.
As an aside, a friend of mine has compiled a nice list (http://www.demolicious.org/taxonomy/term/38) of sites that circumvent the inaccessibility of some high-profile sites, including the infamous Odeon site (which were forced to update their site only after a hearing under the Disability Discriminations Act).
vBulletin® v3.7.4, Copyright ©2000-2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.