URL: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/10/03.html#microsoft_redesign
Date: 2002-10-03T14:42:29-05:00
_Jeffrey Zeldman_: Party like it's 1997[1]. &#8220;Microsoft has redesigned.
Its new layout uses font tags and other deprecated junk straight out of the
mid-1990s. ... When a W3C member company that helped create XHTML and CSS
ignores or misuses those web standards on its corporate site, you have to
wonder who didn't get the memo.&#8221;
The new design also fails even the most basic accessibility tests[2]; the home
page contains 80 instances of images without ALT text. This is the same basic
failing for which the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games was
successfully sued in 2000[3].
Here is what microsoft.com looks like in a text-only browser[4]. (To better
understand the experience, take a piece of paper and cover your entire monitor
except for the top line, then scroll the window slowly so you can only read one
line at a time.) While nothing is technically locked out (all the links are
regular links, nothing requires Javascript to function properly), all the
un-ALT-enhanced images (which are mostly spacer images and images-as-bullets)
add so much clutter to the page that it's very difficult to navigate.
Meanwhile, I don't want to imagine what it would sound like through a screen
reader. Want to find the search box? That's &#8220;1pttrans dot gif 1pttrans
dot gif search for 1pttrans dot gif 1pttrans dot gif form edit box 1pttrans dot
gif submit button go 1pttrans dot gif link advanced search 1pttrans dot gif
...&#8221; And I hope you weren't looking for Microsoft's accessibility home
page[5]; it's the 76th link on the page (out of 76).
[1] http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0902b.html#prince
[2] http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/bobbyServlet?advanced=true&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.microsoft.com%2F&gl=wcag1-a&Text=text&line=line&an_errs=an_errs&stealth=Bobby%2F3.3&output=Submit
[3] http://www.contenu.nu/socog.html
[4] http://diveintomark.org/public/microsoft_lynx_output.txt
[5] http://www.microsoft.com/enable/