Recently in accessibility Category

Captcha Gone Mad

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By Michele Neylon on February 24, 2009 1:23 PM | 4 Comments
While I can fully understand and appreciate people using captcha on web submission forms to stop spam / robots, I really don't get why anyone would make a captcha so complicated that it is unusable.

The IIA Netvisionary nomination form has this "lovely" captcha on it:
inaccessible captchaI saw that and my eyes glazed over.

Sorry guys, but there is no way that I'm even going to attempt to make sense of that.

Darragh also posted about this (he'd know!)




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Silly User Interface Things

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By Michele Neylon on February 5, 2009 1:10 PM | 2 Comments
American Express offer an online service to their card holders that allows them to check their balance, charges and payments.

The problem is that if you go to the American Express website to login you will end up getting a bit frustrated and confused.

Why?

Well it's really simple.

While there is a nice little button on the main page inviting you to register for the service, there is no login link.

Well, actually, that's not true.

There is a login, it's just labelled as "register":

amex ireland

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Cross Browser Testing Makes Sense

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By Michele Neylon on December 16, 2008 10:15 PM | 38 Comments
Trying to get sites to display identically across multiple browsers and multiple operating systems is awkward. This site probably doesn't display particularly well on all browsers, but I'm not a professional web designer / developer, so you'll have to excuse me. It's also not a corporate / business website trying to sell products or services to the public.

Screenclick, however, is a business website.

Earlier this evening I decided to visit it on my Mac using Firefox. Apart from the really annoying splash page, which doesn't do anything useful, the main page does not load correctly in Firefox 3 on the Mac:
screenclick-firefox-mac.png

Now if you open the same page in Safari you seem something totally different:
screenclick-safari.pngWhy?

Seemingly somebody decided to use Microsoft's Silverlight, but didn't bother to do a simple plugin check that would either prompt the user to install the plugin or gracefully degrade.

I won't be able to view their site on my Linux desktop either, as Silverlight isn't available for Linux (there is a port, but last time I checked there wasn't a native Debian / Ubuntu version available)

UPDATE: I've now moved to my Ubuntu Linux desktop and this is what I get:

The wonderfully helpful splash page (do they honestly expect me to continue browsing after seeing that?)

screenclick ubuntu linux

and the inner page (for some odd reason it's actually telling me that I need Silverlight now, whereas it wasn't on my Mac!)

screenclick-ubuntu-mainpage.png


PS: For a slightly different view on the Screenclick site check out Hugh's post

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Captcha Sorts Out The Nerds From The Boys

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By Michele Neylon on September 2, 2008 3:54 PM | 3 Comments
I have no idea how I got sent a link to this, but it did amuse me.

If you want to access this particular site you will need to solve this mathematical problem first:

captcha-gone-mad




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Dilbert.com Needs A New Webmaster

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By Michele Neylon on April 20, 2008 1:46 AM | 2 Comments
A new look and feel was unveiled for Dilbert.com

You'd think that people would be delighted, but the opposite is the case.

Why?

Well whoever is responsible for the screwup that is the new site seems to be living in the past.

The new Flash animations are simple Flash. There's no reason why they wouldn't work in most browsers on most platforms, but if you visit the animation section using Linux you get a lovely message:

Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP Media Center 2005, Mac OSX 10.3 or Mac OSX 10.4 is required to view this page

So you grab yourself a copy of the UserAgent Switcher extension for Firefox and "spoof" a "supported" browser. And of course the entire thing then works fine.

Doh!

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SalesOnline Semi-Offline

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By Michele Neylon on February 24, 2008 10:38 PM | 2 Comments
I've mentioned the horrific salesonline.ie site a couple of times in the past.

They've now taken the site offline and are instead displaying a holder page with their contact details.

At least they're not making us all suffer through that video anymore!

So anyone want to take bets on whether their new site will actually comply with any web standards?
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StumbleUpon, Jaiku and Travian

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By Michele Neylon on February 18, 2008 8:01 PM | 2 Comments
I signed up for a StumbleUpon account nearly 3 years ago. Of course I lost the login details and ended up creating another account last year, which I then forgot about. Bernie was inviting people to connect with him earlier this evening, so I dugout the original emails...

While I can appreciate that StumbleUpon is free and useful it's got some really annoying UI / "user experience" glitches.

Why does the main page invite me to "join" when I'm already logged in?

Why does the "invite friends" screen insist on sending emails to people instead of actually searching for them? There is an option to find people via their email address, but it's well and truly buried.

The invite friends email isn't particularly well crafted either. Instead of sending you to a page to join OR login it forces you to signup, so Bernie's emails earlier this evening will probably have frustrated a load of other people (unintentionally on his part).

Jaiku has been offline for most of today, which is a pity. It looks like they're having hardware or database issues again. Pity, as its interface is so much nicer to use than Twitter.

Travian UK have restarted server 1, so hopefully I'll fare a bit better. I'm currently being slaughtered on the speed server :(
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Vodafone Website Chaos

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By Michele Neylon on February 5, 2008 9:56 PM | 7 Comments
I'm currently considering getting a Blackberry or similar device. Much as I love my N95 it's lack of a full keyboard wouldn't make it my ideal choice for email "on the go".

Since we're with Vodafone I naturally thought that checking their site would be a good idea.

How wrong could I be!

There is simply no sane way to see a list of available phones on their site.

Sure. You can lie and say you are a new client and get "a" list, but if you are an existing bill pay client you will end up looking elsewhere in frustration, as the site simply does not work.

You can't see the phones unless you login.

So, you login.

Can you now see the phones? No. That would be far too logical. Not only does it ask you to login (even though the top right of the page shows that you are already logged in) but it starts asking you irrelevant questions about upgrades.
Did I say I wanted an upgrade?
Do I even care if I am eligible?
No.
All I want to know is what phones are available and roughly how much they cost.
Is that too much to ask?

Sorry about the rant!

I feel calmer now! 

I think I'll just head over to ebay instead...
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Irish Computer Society Don't Know How To Use Email

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By Michele Neylon on December 7, 2007 5:53 PM | 5 Comments
I've been subscribed to some of the Irish Computer Society's newsletters for some time, though I am not a member.

Some weeks ago they sent out a newsletter without a subject line, which would have struck me as slightly odd, but when it came from ICS it struck me as incompetent. I contacted them about it, naturally, however they obviously still haven't learnt how to send out emails!

After getting back from the office I opened my personal mail to find another "helpful" email from them without a subject line and to add insult to injury the entire content of the email is a graphic!!

Accessibility where are you?

Usability level zero

Well done!

Newsletters and announcements sent via email are possibly the only direct contact people might have with an organisation. Getting the basics right is essential
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When Is A Link Not A Link?

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By Michele Neylon on October 19, 2007 9:00 AM | 4 Comments
When is a link not a link?

When you can't actually click on it.

Someone started a thread over on CI the other day about NetVisionary nominee Panthius

The footer of the site contains a set of "links" which DO NOT work if you are using a normal browser:

deadlinks.jpg
It transpires that the links do work if you use Internet Explorer, which shows how "popular" a browser that is with Irish creative and web professionals!

Regardless of what browser I may or may not be using I'm amazed that someone managed to put together a business website so badly that the links don't work. That takes effort!



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