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1
rabideau
Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 1:01

  • rabideau

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 1042

  • Since: 2003/4/25


I have been working on designing a new base template for use with XOOPS 2.0.1x sites. The basic effort has included building a theme that uses:

1. clean css with no tables- W3C compliant
2. font resizing for the disabled- java script driven
3. wire frame techniques for easy window resizing
4. opacity /transparency-- because it looks nice

and some other stuff. Okay enough about that...

I have run Silktide ratings on three of my sites that use this framework (http://eirenicon.org, http://jvalley.net; http://processteam.org) they rate between 9.9 and 10 in design and 9.6+ is user experience ratings (I get killed because the sites aren't popular and because I don't meet UK disability standards).

So here are my questions:
1. Anyone else use this rating scheme?
2. Is it useful?
3. What are the UK disability requirements I am missing?

Any comments and help are welcomed!
Pax vobiscum,
...mark

may the road rise to meet your feet!

http://treemagic.org
2
DarinAllan
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

As I run a Disability website of sorts this interests me, have a look at the accessibility features on this site

Here

They seem to give advice as well ;o)
3
skenow
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 3:53

  • skenow

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 993

  • Since: 2004/11/17


I do check at SilkTide about once a month for sites I maintain, just to see what I need to work on. Lately, the Google results at SilkTide have not been working, so I also check out Alexa and Google itself.

Theming and templates will only help with some of the UI portions of a good web design. The rest is content - the basis of all searches - and links from other sites. Neither of those are directly affected by the way your site looks.

Some of the things I noticed with a quick visit to eirenicon was the lack of alt tag information for all yous images, some links lacking title tag information, both of which will lower your accessibility score.

A theme by itself will not address all the items in the UK disability compliance, nor will it place you high in PR or traffic ranking immediately. Following the recommendations in JMorris' article and the articles on Xoops-Tips certainly have helped us.
4
rabideau
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 13:19

  • rabideau

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 1042

  • Since: 2003/4/25


Thanks guys. I know I'm remiss with the tag thing. Tiresome but easy enough to fix. I guess I'll do that to see what difference it makes (I'll place an update here, if I remember!)

I would like to actually see a document with the requirements stated. It seems that we ought to document the whole design, rating thing better for the community.

I'll do what I can with the theme I provide from now on...
Pax vobiscum,
...mark

may the road rise to meet your feet!

http://treemagic.org
5
skenow
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 14:37

  • skenow

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 993

  • Since: 2004/11/17


For accessibility standards, start with this article at A List Apart and this one at W3C
6
rabideau
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 15:35

  • rabideau

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 1042

  • Since: 2003/4/25


Thank you skenow.

After having reviewed your links I also found this handy checklist:

http://www.webaim.org/standards/508/checklist.php
Pax vobiscum,
...mark

may the road rise to meet your feet!

http://treemagic.org
7
carnuke
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 17:41

  • carnuke

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 1955

  • Since: 2003/11/5


I used to have a rating of 8.5 0n silktide, Now suddenly it has gone down to 7.3 Looking at the detailed results I can only summise that the system has gone wrong. They have always knocked me hard for the dissability factor, despite the fact I use 'TITLE' and 'ALT' tags for my images.

To be honest I no longer trust the reports, especially as my site has been promoted to Google rank 5 recently.

They say my site is not very popular and not well linked to but since the last report which said I was popular end well linked to, my visitors have increased and my backlinks also.

There's a glitch for sure.
hhttp://houseofstrauss.co.uk Resource for alternative health and holistic lifestyle
search xoops
8
rabideau
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 17:54

  • rabideau

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 1042

  • Since: 2003/4/25


Hi Richard,

I have to agree. I just changed all my images to comply with the UK Disability std label requirements (and my rating went DOWN). I also fixed a css error in my html and it went DOWN.

I looked at all the Error details and found that none matched my current code.

Like you I guess I'll just be happy with my best efforts and good Google rankings.
Pax vobiscum,
...mark

may the road rise to meet your feet!

http://treemagic.org
9
carnuke
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 18:06

  • carnuke

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 1955

  • Since: 2003/11/5


Mark, you even have a text size option (which goes really large!) I think any disabled (vision) person would be happy to visit your site.

Keep doing what you do, you have great resources.
hhttp://houseofstrauss.co.uk Resource for alternative health and holistic lifestyle
search xoops
10
rabideau
Re: Silktide and other site rating issues.

  • 2007/1/31 18:26

  • rabideau

  • Home away from home

  • Posts: 1042

  • Since: 2003/4/25


Thank you Richard. I truly appreciate your confidence and insights!
Pax vobiscum,
...mark

may the road rise to meet your feet!

http://treemagic.org
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