The Ironically Named Usability.gov
You might expect a high level of accessibility from a site called Usability.gov. You might be disappointed. Sadly, I wasn't particularly surprised by my quick look into the accessibility of this site.
Age is definitely a factor. While the copyright is up to date, the fact that has custom style sheets for Internet Explorer (IE) 5 and newer, and 4.7 and older makes me think it's not a new design. With that code, I'd hope it was more than five years old. Regardless, it's showing its age.
Some of the low points of the site are:
- Absolutely horrible use of headings for structure.
- Use of images of text rather than text.
- Bad use of the hover pseudo-class making navigation awkward
- No use of the focus pseudo-class making keyboard navigation all but impossible
- An unreasonable number of validation errors and warnings
- Invisible skip links, which don't work in IE.
This is one of those sites that seems to pass most cursory accessibility tests without actually being accessible. It follows the letter of Section 508 compliance, while throwing the spirit of the law out the window. That it does have skip links, but you can't see them and they don't work is a perfect example of this. It has the appearance of accessibility, without actual the benefit of accessibility.
Comments
I'm not a design expert whatsoever. So, you'd recommend making as many headings as possible text, rather than images?
In regard to usability, does it matter for people using a site whether it's text or graphics? I know that a lot of graphics aren't good for SEO.
Cheers.
It is ironic! As someone "In the business" poorly thought out websites drive me mad - I wonder sometimes if developers get ordinary people to check them out.
I spent an hour last night trying to book a flight on an awful site - in the end I gave up and they lost the business to a competitor.
Definitely headings rather than images, but either/or isn't not your only choice. Using CSS you can use both images and headings.
As a designer you need to keep the entire audience in mind. Some viewers are going to have images turned off or use screen readers. How are they going to use the site? Screen reader and some browsers use headings for navigation and structure, how are they going to see the site?
I try to think of a site as an outline, with headings marking each section. Then if a browser or screen reader takes out the CSS, takes out the images, or turns off the JavaScript I still have an organized readable structure. This idea tends to be SEO friendly too.
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