Fix the (inaccessible) web
| 12:24 UK time, Monday, 15 November 2010
Ever found that you can't use a website and have no idea how to report it? Or worse, the feedback facility is as inaccessible as the rest of the site? Well perhaps you should put in your favourites.
Launched this week by Citizen's Online with help from its project partners, Fix The Web is a two-way feedback street. It provides a very simple way of reporting bad website experiences via a short form. Volunteers then pick up these reports and feed them back to the developers of the website.
The idea is that it's less time consuming and frustrating for the disabled people having the problem and that useful and enlightening accessibility information gets fed back to the site owners.
So how bad is the web?
"One of the strong things that came from the experts we consulted is that they didn't really know what were the main things that bother disabled people," says Dr Gail Bradbrook, project manager. "It felt everything was so top down. So the first thing we're trying to do is make it very easy to let disabled people have their say, in less than 60 seconds."
And why should web owners listen to disabled people who get in contact via the site?
"There is a really obvious business case to making the web accessible. Disabled people have a 50 billion spend ... there's potential for legal action to be taken ... and there is a moral case that the internet should be open to everybody."
As well as a web form, you can report bad website experiences via Twitter by using the following two tags together: '#fixtheweb #fail'. A downloadable toolbar is also on its way.
Fix The Web is hoping to have 250,000 reports within the next two years and you can keep a track of how the project is doing by following the count on their website.
Comment number 1.
At 16th Nov 2010, M M wrote:This is total rubbish ! the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has not fixed it's OWN links yet, try the see hear one ! unchanged and wrong for over a YEAR....
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Comment number 2.
At 18th Nov 2010, JanetDoe wrote:How do I report the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s own POV message boards?
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Comment number 3.
At 18th Nov 2010, auntieCtheM wrote:I would like to question why the Ouch board was set up.
It was not for the benefit of disabled people, (else they would listen when eg VI people say that the font used has letters that are too thin to read peoperly) and it was not to show how the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ valued the opinions and advice of disabled people who have to live with whatever health issues they have been given (else they would have listened in all the 'consultations' and suggestions on numerous threads in the past).
And it is not to show how they value disabled people as human beings with expertise - how often have we asked for the extra blank page at the end of a thread to be fixed. We have asked for a search facility and it is one of the users who came up with one, but because it cannot be 'stickied' it slips down the thread list. Why have you not put it up at the top of the threads list?
Fix the (inaccessible) web? Fix your own internet site first and look to your own misson statement. On-off consultations with little positive feedback only makes the users more and more cynical and unco-operative. Show continuous concern and interest and we are yours for life.
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Comment number 4.
At 30th Nov 2010, fixthewebgail wrote:The comments above are saying that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has some accessibility issues. A few have come in via the Fix the Web site and been fixed (I think some are "in progress" too).
It may be that complaints made about ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, especially if they are on comments areas, don't get picked up by the right people.
The idea with Fix the Web is to take out the hassle of reporting inaccessible websites for disabled people because the volunteers take the time to take the issue forwards.
You can report in several ways so have a look at the Fix the Web site, mentioned in the article above
Gail
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