Coffee.net
The CoffeeNet site is a vast site offering a wealth of content that may be of interest to anyone going to or living in the Seattle, Washington area. It covers restaurants, coffee shops, entertainment, and a lot more. Everything and anything anyone might want or need, and, as it concerns this web site, “everyone” would include most disabled users because the site was designed with accessibility in mind. It shows.
It’s a challenge, we know. We get into our project’s content so deeply it’s easy to forget the markup, the accessibility, the validity, and all that minutiae. Thus, when we see a site like this — one that is pretty well done and valid cover-to-cover — we smile. We understand the challenge, and we appreciate the dedication it takes to do it right. Unfortunately, good looks and a zillion valid pages aside, this site is not without its shortcomings.
Aside from not being totally complete — some member functionality isn’t complete but we pressed on because many items were finished just so we could proceed — the site has a couple of issues that just didn’t sit right with us. First thing we noted were the number of div elements in use, many with inline styles. We know there are often legitimate needs that may arise, but we saw way too many. That in itself hurt its grade. Yes it’s a big site with lots of challenges, but we felt the usages were excessive. Another thing we noted that we really disliked was a noted lack of lists. Don’t misunderstand, lists are in use on the site, but the footer and navigation should also be listed and they weren’t.
We found myriad other little things, some we liked, some we didn’t. Some things were done “right” but not done “well,” at least as well as they should have been. It is because of this we awarded the site as we did. Big and valid is impressive, but sans major shortcomings would have made it a lot better in our eyes and we would have awarded respectively.
The CoffeeNet website was crafted by Grant Yuan and following review was deemed eligible for an Award Level of: “Notable Universal Design.” Congratulations Grant!
Grant Y responds:
Posted: April 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm →
Thanks Team Access- it’s been a vast learning experience on all fronts building the site, so it means a lot to receive the Notable achievement award. I agree with the comments on the over abundance of DIV tags. It’s certainly been a struggle to tame the amount of markup while progressing with the site.
I look forward to improving the site even more in the future. Cheers guys!