Design and Accessibility: Part III

Structure, Presentation, and Accessibility

In the previous article, Linda wrote about separation anxiety, or about the definitions of content, structure, and presentation, and whether content can be separated from structure or even from presentation in Website designs. This debate sparked the famous “separation anxiety” issue and Linda added her two cents to this discussion. She stated that none of the above can be separated, and she used the Opera browser’s User Mode to support her viewpoint and also to illustrate a few ways that a person who suffers from low-vision impairments might visualize the Montrose Citizens for Responsible Growth site and Target’s site. In addition, she illustrated how to use the Worldwide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) validation service to check for CSS errors and warnings.

Now, Linda returns to presentation, or the layout and design of a Website, and how to visualize whether a Website’s page is available to as many users as possible – including people with normal sight and to those viewers who suffer from low-vision impairments and blindness. In this article, she shows how CSS links contained in HTML/XHTML documents can break a CSS2 presentation in older browsers and other ways that structure and style can alter presentation in various browsers and platforms. Why is this important, when some other designers have – for instance – more or less dropped issues like Netscape 4x presentation? Find out...

Overview

Test, Test, Test that Presentation…

Presentation usually isn’t an issue for blind Internet users, because that issue is more about structure and content except when your stylesheet link crashes a browser. When that happens, a blind user’s screen reader cannot read your page. So, although you might be concerned with how your Website design appears to those users who can override your design with other stylesheets and even more so with those viewers who can see your design, the mismanagement of the link between structure and presentation may affect other users as well.

HTML/XHTML and CSS validation are the first steps to assure that your Website design won’t break because of sloppy or mismanaged code. And, you might repeat these tests over and over as you adjust that code. Other tests – other than those which reside on Opera’s User Mode applications – can help you visualize how others might view your site.

For example: My computer works with a Win32 platform with Windows XP, and Opera 8.51, IE (Internet Explorer) 6.0, and Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 browsers also reside on this machine. I utilize these three browsers when I build sites, because each one translates my efforts differently. Firefox and Opera demand more precision. If I mess up, the site might not show in either browser. I like how those two browsers read my code accurately as well; however, I also like how IE manipulates my code, because I’ve learned a lot about how to manipulate IE through this effort.

Linda Goin

Linda Goin carries an A.A. in graphic design, a B.F.A. in visual communications with a minor in business and marketing and an M.A. in American History with a minor in the Reformation. While the latter degree doesn't seem to fit with the first two educational experiences, Linda used her 25-year design expertise on archaeological digs and in the study of material culture. Now she uses her education and experiences in social media experiments.

Accolades for her work include fifteen first-place Colorado Press Association awards, numerous fine art and graphic design awards, and interviews about content development with The Wall St. Journal, Chicago Tribune, Psychology Today, and L.A. Times.

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