Lotus from the Mud
The Lotus from the Mud site immediately impressed us. Clean lines and whitespace, professional, and really great looking — a really sophisticated, artistic site. Smiling from this initial impression, we dug deeper and were both delighted and saddened by what we found. Like most sites we grade, the turn-ons were countered by some turn-offs. We didn’t find anything that couldn’t be fixed with ease, indicating this site has a good foundation on which the developer can work from.
The delightful turn-ons resulted from the quality of the mark-up and attention to source details. It didn’t stop there either, grading revealed a lot of quality level areas in addition to mark-up: progressive enhancement and graceful degradation, links and linking, cross-browser compatibility, visual design, and especially, keyboard navigation support. And if that’s where we stopped prodding and poking, Lotus from the Mud would be getting a Quality level award in the here and now. But we do more than prod and poke. We dig deeper and find more. Unfortunately for this site, our deeper digging uncovered a couple of serious flaws — the turn-offs.
One thing that all of the graders who worked on this site’s marks noted was the use of right-aligned content text. Right-aligning text is fine and dandy when styling one sentence, heading, or snippet, but on this site the majority of the content was right-aligned. This is a serious mistake when used to post Left-To-Right (LTR) content for the simple reason that it’s difficult at best to read. As one grader remarked that right-aligned text is absolutely atrocious.
The reason for this is when reading left-aligned text, the user’s eyes jump down to the beginning of the next sentence to continue reading. When the text is right-aligned, though, the beginning of the next sentence must be first located; not just requiring vertical eye movement, but horizontal movement as well. This hurt the site’s grade significantly, as did the typography in general. We didn’t seem to think it was up-to-par with the site’s other artistic attributes.
Another thing that really killed this site’s grade was a noted lack of visitor support. No site map, unhelpful 404 page, no robots.txt file (hey, robots are visitors too), no choice or options, some contrast issues, and spotty language support coupled with some iffy translations. As one grader put it: It really drags this site down.
This site could have easily been awarded a Quality-level (or greater if the site was large, complex, and interactive), but the things we found really split our decision with the majority voting for a Notable level award. And there you have it:
The Lotus from the Mud site was crafted by Tee G. Peng and following review was deemed eligible for an Award Level of: “Notable Universal Design.” Congratulations Tee!
Tee G. Peng responds:
Posted: January 24th, 2008 at 5:20 am →
Hi Team access,
I am very grateful for such an in-depth evaluation of my site, this is the first time my work ever get a professional review, and I have already leaned so much reading the detail grading comments. All comments are highly noted, and improvement for the site will be made hopefully in few months. This will also go to current projects I am working as well as future projects.
I would like to response to these:
1) Right-aligned text — it was part of the design consideration and actually took me a hard time to come to that decision. It seemed a good choice at time, but now I know it’s not, however I may still keep it and offer a different style sheet as suggested because I was (maybe still am) obsessed with the ‘harmonious flow’ of the layout.
2) About comment on my English writing. Well, I totally see the point from one of the grader, however I would like to think my decision for not looking for a professional copywriter is a good one. My web design service requires intensive verbal and written communications with clients, the majority of them, only speak one language, the English. Lotus from the mud is a mixed of personal and web design service site, do I attract more clients if I were to present a flawless English content that is written, proofread by a copywriter? Maybe yes for the first (false) impression. Somehow, I just don’t think it will go well when I am asked to go to client’s office for meeting, and I can’t afford to bring an interpreter with me to meet clients so that everybody can understand me
And I can’t have copywriter proofread every article of my blog, every email I write to clients. So, the bottom line is, I either don’t get work from people who think my English is a problem, or people who don’t think it a problem — so far, the number is 50/50 
I do welcome grammatical corrections from my site visitors.
Thank you again for the grading!
Tee (is she)
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: January 24th, 2008 at 8:41 am →
Whoops sorry.
David Zemens - 1955 Design responds:
Posted: January 24th, 2008 at 12:54 pm →
Congratulations on a great website Tee.
Although you obviously are taking the criticisms seriously, please remember that the reviewers at Accessites are the best-of-the-best. They are tough critics who demand the finest. You are in very good company!
Tee G. Peng responds:
Posted: January 25th, 2008 at 3:33 am →
Hi Mike, No problem. I actually like that nobody can tell whether I am he or she from my name, and usually don’t care to reveal my gender. But I thought Team Access deserves to know — it’s my subtle way to showing respect.
David, yes, I take all criticisms and comments from the grading very serious, in positive way, not offensive. I don’t know if having my site showcased here means anything to my web design business (and that wasn’t the reason that I submitted my site), but at personal level and in pursuit of advancing my knowledge/skills in web accessibility area, I am greatly honored to have received such an in-depth review from ‘best-of-the-best’ web accessible critics. I am in very god company, no doubt about it
tee
Webdesign den haag responds:
Posted: January 25th, 2008 at 5:46 am →
Woow this site is really cool, i can use it all verry much! the lotus site btw looks awsome, clean style and nice design!
Jermayn Parker responds:
Posted: January 28th, 2008 at 9:35 pm →
The menu is my favourite feature..
Good job Tee