LiveLoveAutumnFall

Posted April 12th, 2007 by Joe Dolson

Web designer Joshua Kendall’s LiveLoveAutumnFall blog is a solidly constructed web site. It’s clear right away that the developer has paid attention to a number of accessibility details — forms are conscientiously provided with :focus and :hover states, the code is (mostly) semantic and the design is simple enough to provide minimal distraction.

There are a few complaints, of course. No skip links have been provided for easy content navigation, the keyboard :focus on links is perhaps too subtle to be really useful, and there are numerous occurrences of undifferentiated link texts — links which target different locations but have the same text. All in all, we felt the site, developed by Joshua Kendall, has solidly earned the “Notable Universal Design” Award level.

Congratulations Joshua!

Filed under The Showcase, Notable Awards —

12 Responses to: “LiveLoveAutumnFall”

Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: April 12th, 2007 at 3:31 pm →

Nice job Joshua.
Shane Holland responds:
Posted: April 14th, 2007 at 8:58 pm →

Hi Joshua.

Just curious as to why the footer text is so small in Firefox on the normal browser font size, but its okay in IE? Seems odd.
http://www.avenuedesigners.com/uploads/accessites_livelove.png

Nice website, btw - very simple and I like the colors!

Take care.
Joe Dolson responds:
Posted: April 14th, 2007 at 10:03 pm →

That is odd…and it’s also not how it appears in my browser! (Firefox 1.5.0.7) What version/OS are you using? Just out of curiousity…
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: April 15th, 2007 at 12:05 am →

It’s fine on mine. I’m running Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Win XP. I recall us having discussion about the footer text, before the grading actually began, but I could have sworn it had been resolved. Hopefully Joshua will address it since it apparently isn’t a closed case. It should be a simple enough fix.
Josh Kendall responds:
Posted: April 15th, 2007 at 12:41 am →

Thanks for pointing that out Shane. I remember having that problem in IE7 and fixing it there. Not sure why it was doing it, but I was seeing it in my version of Firefox (2.0.0.3 on OS X 10.4.9) as well. I updated the font size and it looks fine on my system now. I’m curious as to how it looks now in your version of Firefox Mike, is it (much) larger or relatively the same?
Shane Holland responds:
Posted: April 15th, 2007 at 8:11 am →

@ Joe Dolson:

I’m running Windows XP and that screen shot was from Firefox 2.0.0.3. Again, all the IE’s I’ve tested it in it looks great.

I just find it strange Mike is running the same platform and browser and his is different. Hmm…
Jim Thatcher responds:
Posted: April 15th, 2007 at 9:02 am →

Nice site! I disagree with one of your “complaints,” Mike. I think “skip links” are a hack long past their usefulness. When you have carefully marked up headings as on Joshua’s site there is no need for skip links and they should not be used.
Shane Holland responds:
Posted: April 15th, 2007 at 9:23 am →

Hi Joshua - seems to be working okay now. I’m not on my home computer but this computer is running Windows XP in Firefox 2.0.03.

Take care,
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: April 15th, 2007 at 9:43 am →

Nice site! I disagree with one of your “complaints,” Mike. I think “skip links” are a hack long past their usefulness. When you have carefully marked up headings as on Joshua’s site there is no need for skip links and they should not be used. — Jim Thatacher

Hi Jim. It was Joe’s write-up, not mine, but I’m with him in that I’d like to see skip links too. I don’t understand why you suggest they not be used (makes them sound like a bad practice). Granted, with a wise use of headings a blind user working with a supporting screen reader has great page content access by way of headings, but that’s just one user group. I still think they’re a big usability plus for those who: 1) don’t support styles; 2) use a text browser; 3) access a page with handheld devices or; 4) use a keyboard to navigate a web page. I think they’re helpful to anyone, basically, who can’t use heading navigation and might still encounter a linear page.
Robert Wellock responds:
Posted: April 17th, 2007 at 11:06 am →

With regards to “skip links” I assume it really depends upon ‘link density’ as to their real perceived worth.
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: April 17th, 2007 at 3:36 pm →

Good point, Robert. A light page with very few links probably wouldn’t be well served by them.
Dennis responds:
Posted: April 23rd, 2007 at 10:29 am →

Nicely done. I’d also like to see the ’skip nav’ feature. Also, I’d suggest writing the Accessibility Statement slanted more for the user, not the person analyzing the code…

Sorry. Comments are closed.