Petros Dimitriadis - A g(r)eek web designer writes about design and more...

While everyone on the web talks about accessibility I thought I would have a look on the Greek web portals and see how they manage in that section.

This review is not in any way trying to "point the finger" or name the companies involved, I am just trying to review some major Greek websites and see how accessible are for the users. The review will not comment the content of the website or the visual appearance but only the technology used.

All comments and reviews are based on tests made in 9th and 10th of June 2005.

The websites that will be reviewed are:

News portals

• In (www.in.gr)

• Flash (www.flash.gr)

• Pathfinder (www.pathfinder.gr>)

• Ert (www.ert.gr)

Sport portals

• Sportime (www.sportime.gr)

• Contra (www.contra.gr)

• Supersport (www.supersport.gr)

The selection of those websites are purely out of my personal discretion.
The review is based on the homepage of the website as it is the most important part of the website.

The criteria are:

• Code validation, HTML

• Code validation, CSS

• Automated accessibility scores, using the web developer toolbar on Firefox

• Alt text – use and suitability

• Javascript dependence – does the page still function when Javascript is disabled

• User control of text size – can the text be enlarged

• Is there a link to skip past the navigation

• Is the tab order sensible and predictable

• Have header tags been used correctly to convey document structure

• Has suitable descriptive text been used for links

• Download speed

Tools used:

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

• Web developer extension for Firefox

• W3C HTML validator

• W3C CSS validator

• Watchfire WebXACT

Results

Results through HTML code validation

Using the W3C validator the outcome is:

• Only one (Pathfinder) out of 7 contained valid HTML !

• Three of them (In, Sportime, Supersport) did not declare a valid DOCTYPE – necessary for the browser to correctly interpret the page

• The average errors from all the websites is 204 !

Not good results for websites that have that popularity within the Greek readers.


Results through CSS code validation

Using the W3C validator the outcome is:

• Three of them (Flash, Pathfinder, Supersport) contained valid CSS while the others didn't.

Results through Automated accessibility

Using the "Cynthia says" report the outcome is:

• All of them failed at least on one criteria

• All of them except Pathfinder failed on the 1.1 (Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content...)) which is supposed to be one of the easiest step to improve accessibility.

• Other criteria failed are 13.1(Clearly identify the target of each link), 5.3 (Do not use tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized), 6.3 (Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported), 3.2 (Create documents that validate to published formal grammars)...

Results through Alt Text

Using the Web Developer extension for Firefox the outcome is:

• Pathfinder and Supersport made very good use of the Alt text
• All the other did almost ok as some of them didn't supply alt text for their logos (In, Ert) while others didn't supply alt text for their newspaper frontpage (Sportime) and one of them (Contra) didn't supply alt text for the search button!

Results through Javascripr dependence

Using the Web Developer extension for Firefox the outcome is:

• Pathfinder and Supersport didn't have any affect on the usability and navigation of the website with Javascript disabled
• While the others had significant errors such as in In you couldn't search for anything neither you could use the translate service
• In Flash you couldn't use the services drop down menu
• In Ert there was no drop down menu for the sub navigation (although you could still use it) but the search facility couldn't be used
• In Sportime no major problems except you couldn't view the newspaper frontpage as well some ads
• And final Contra which had the worst performance as you can't navigate to other pages at all as the navigation disappears.

Results through Text resize

All the websites give the ability to the user to resize the text.


Results through Skip links

None of the websites included a skip link.


Results through Tab order

According to W3C the logical tab order is the one that should be used, view it here
All the websites use the default browser tab order which is not always the normal one, however Sportime started from an ad and then continued at the bottom of the page and finally arrived in the navigation!


Results through Header tags

According to the W3C specification, the six levels of header tags, h1 to h6, “should reflect the logical structure of the document”.

• In.gr used only H1
• Flash didn't use any of them
• Pathfinder did use them quite well
• Ert didn't use any of them
• None of the Sport sites use any of the header tags

Results through Speed report

Using the Web optimisation website

• In 24.86 / 7.75
• Flash 32.04 / 9.95
• Pathfinder 13.43 /4.11
• Ert 47.76 / 15.04
• Sportime 55.67 / 17.19
• Contra 20.48 / 6.55
• Supersport 45.59 / 14.10

The first figure is for 56k modem and the second for ISDN 128k.

Conclusion

As you can see from the results no major effort has been done from all the websites except Pathfinder which is the clear winner.

I had noted more criteria to test those websites but I decided it would be too much and I might dissapoint some people.

I hope I review those websites in the future and see some changes.

Useful links

Browser statistics

Andy Budd accessibility links

This article was inspired by 29digital design studio

Translated version in Greek by John Tsevdos