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Relaunched Recovery.gov Fails Accessibility Standards
SethGrimes writes with this excerpt from Information Week's Intelligent Enterprise: "Recovery.gov, a showcase government-transparency Web site that relaunched on Monday, fails to meet US federal government Section 508 accessibility standards and accessibility best practices. The non-compliance issues relate to display of data tables — an essential point given the site's promise of 'Data, Data & More Data' — despite on-site compliance claims. Other elements including navigation maps, while compliant, are poorly designed. Sharron Rush, co-founder and executive director of accessibility-advocacy organization Knowbility, goes so far as to state, 'The recovery.gov Web site is a good example of what NOT to do for accessibility in my opinion.' Louise Radnofsky explains in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog, 'Expectations are high for the site, not least because of its hefty price tag: Smartronix, a Maryland contractor, is being paid $9.5 million for its initial overhaul and is likely to get another $8.5 million to keep the site running through 2014.' Compliance with Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act — a baseline expectation — is a long-standing federal-government requirement for information-systems accessibility to persons with disabilities. The site's accessibility failures — which are shared by another showcase government-transparency site, USAspending.gov — are nonetheless easily seen."
I tend to agree. While there should be -some- accessibility standards (as in, being able to get everything in basic HTML, open standards, etc) but to be perfectly honest, some handicapped people just aren't cut out for some jobs or some tasks and may require assistance.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I thought about making this post without even bothering to go look, but yup the site displays the 'seal of quality' up in the url bar. As soon as you see that .aspx at the end you know you are probably in for a world of pain at at site. You know things will probably suck from end to end. Performance issues, design issues, usability issues, the whole bit.
No, using Microsoft products isn't always the reason but it is always a symptom of the root problem. It is as close to a "This site designed by idiots!" logo as we are ever likely to see. Only idiots (or companies beholden to Microsoft's goodwill) pick Microsoft's inferior in every way stuff to roll out a high volume, high visibility site on. Poor design isn't caused by hosting on a Microsoft server but it is another symptom of designed by idiots.
Democrat delenda est
Yup. I managed to drill down to some locations in the People's Republic of California that I recognised, and they obfuscated who got the money and what for. I was able to infer from the locations who it was, big bucks for the local ACORN-style money sinks. I should have been a social service contractor, that's where the money is.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I voted for Obama and I support him and healthcare reform.
Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends use irrelevant disclaimers in an effort to apply ethos to a logos argument.. However...blah blah blah...
Pure fagotry there, bro.
THL phish sticks
Seriously, the 508 compliance stuff is brain-dead. I have to file a 508 compliance exception form because my monitor doesn't have the braille on the keys so a blind person can tell the difference between them. The onus is on the manufacturers to do the voluntary testing, and most don't bother.