Applaud Web Solutions
The Applaud Web Solutions site has a very professional looking and usable design that does a great job of highlighting the services that it can provide. As well, it’s one of the better examples of utilizing the keyboard and :hover effects to navigate through it’s structure, including the Flash banner. Something you don’t see very often.
There are some issues that should definitely be looked at. One major issue is the non-appearance of the top navigation in Internet Explorer 6 and 7 (IE) as well as Opera 9.21 on Windows. On these browsers, the only top navigation visible is the "Home" link. There are also issues with the results of the empty customer login fields giving you the same results as the empty search field - both resulting in the same error message. Finally, there are some minor issues with the custom 404 page not quite matching the style of the site and content not being available when images are disabled with the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) remaining enabled.
The Applaud Web Solutions site was designed by James Mills. After a detailed review, the site has been deemed eligible for an Award Level of: “Notable Universal Design.” Congratulations James!
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: July 8th, 2007 at 6:19 pm →
Congratz James.
James Mills responds:
Posted: July 9th, 2007 at 7:53 am →
Thanks very much for the review and for the award. I am quite worried about the comments regarding the main navigation… this seems to be a session issue and you should only get it if you follow a link that’s still got the user value in the URL… I am surprised that you have managed to see this error to be honest. We are going to have to do some more testing.
I do like a good :hover on links, I try to use the light yellow on black text as best practice on every thing.
An interesting comment regarding the 404 error page too, I had never thought about it needing to fit in with the sites main design so the user does not get confused to where they have been taken.
Overall an interesting review, thanks again.
David Zemens responds:
Posted: July 13th, 2007 at 10:35 pm →
Very nice work, James. I really enjoy your nice use of Flash without being overpowering. You constructed a very nice website and obviously took great care in its design.
Andy Bryant responds:
Posted: August 15th, 2007 at 10:43 am →
This is my first time on this website (accessites.org) and this is the first site in the showcase I’ve looked at (Applaud web solutions), and I have to say I’m not impressed!
I tried this in Firefox 2, with cookies disabled (my default for newly visited sites). I don’t have the Flash plug-in with Firefox - I’m at work and the firewall prevents me from downloading it (I know for a fact this is a common situation in workplaces). I like the fact that if you don’t have the plug-in you get the static background image instead, but I’m absolutely amazed to discover that if you don’t have the Flash plug-in, you don’t see any content!
In IE6 (with the Flash plug-in, version 8 I think) I do get the Flash movie, which includes a row of unlabelled glassy buttons, but again - no content. Maybe it needs the latest version of Flash and there’s no version-check when the page loads.
Am I right in thinking that all the content is in the embedded flash application? PLEASE tell me you have non-Flash alternatives (i.e. HTML-only versions) for people & user agents that don’t have/support the plug-in, and I’ve just missed the link to them?
If not, this is a basic accessibility error. Flash is a notoriously difficult application to make accessible, so to put ALL your content in it is not the best idea.
Frankly I’m amazed that there are still sites out there that use Flash as the primary (in this case only) method of displaying content, and even more amazed that I should stumble across one in a showcase of accessible websites.
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: August 15th, 2007 at 10:53 am →
As far as I can tell, the only thing done in Flash is the masthead, which doesn’t contain any content not found in other parts of the site.
Andy Bryant responds:
Posted: August 16th, 2007 at 4:54 am →
How much of a plank do I feel? Shortly after submitting the above, I managed to get things working in Firefox (i.e. seeing the content, which clearly ISN’T all held in Flash). Apologies to both James Mills and accessites.org for leaping in without spending more time testing the site.
That said, in Firefox 2 (without Flash plug-in) I have since on two or three occasions when looking at the site had the same problem - when following links under the Flash masthead, the correct pages load but no content appears. I can’t replicate the problem at will though, and I haven’t yet found exactly what combination (i.e. cookies on/off, URL just root or containing main.asp? etc.) brings up the error, but I’ll continue to test!
Also, those glassy buttons in the Flash masthead still bother me - they look like navigation of some kind but seem only to change the masthead image. Maybe I’m missing something?
Aside from that, I’m impressed with the site (now I can finally see it!), and with the effort that’s clearly been made to make it accessible.