Evaluating the accessibility of a site is an involved process that takes time and can’t always be automated.
Yes there are some helpful tools available, but many times it’s a matter of looking at the code, the interface or the content and evaluating a site manually. Sometimes things are so painfully obvious, it takes half a nanosecond to see that there’s a problem and wow, it’s so big it’s a joke.
Given that it’s 2008, most of these sites are around ten years old. But every now and then there’s a new kid on the block and, well… don’t you just wish someone had told them boy bands died out in the 90’s…?
Three months ago I was sent a link to the relaunched UTS Interactive Multimedia course site. I’ll give you the link in a second, but before I do, let me issue this warning: If you suffer from seizures, don’t go there sister.
The Home page has been designed with an “interesting” Flash animation that strobes colour at a rate I’m guessing is much faster than 3 blinks per second.
It absolutely astounds me that a design like that has made it into a redesign in 2008. Worse still, I emailed the department as soon as I saw it and advised them that the flashing seemed quite a high rate and pointed them to the appropriate WCAG checkpoint 7.1, a Priority 1 issue. Even in WCAG 2 this is a Level 1 failure (success criteria 2.3.1).
Unfortunately nothing has been done in the last three months. Can a Flash animation be that important that it is retained, despite the fact that it has the potential to induce seizures in site users? And what message is this sending students of The Interactive Multimedia course?
The Trouble with Tools
I’ve yet to find a web tool that is able to measure the flicker rate of a .swf file. This is a problem. In conducting accessibility reviews, it’s usually obvious when a flicker rate is unsafe, but it’s always better if you can provide evidence. With Gifs it’s easy as there are a number of good tools around that can conduct a flicker test. But with Flash files, you need the .fla file to check frame rates. So in a situation like the one I’ve just described, without the source file, it’s pretty difficult to get an accurate measure.
A Picture Tells a Thousand Words…
I’m probably not doing myself any favours in writing this post. I’m three subjects off completing my Masters of Interactive Multimedia at UTS, so criticising the department’s new website isn’t the smartest thing I’ve done this week. But it’s clearly not the smartest thing they’ve done this year either.
I’m completely astounded that it made it into the design in the first place. I know the people involved in the redesign and it amazes me that they either don’t know or don’t care. Including a design feature like that says so much about the departments knowledge or position on website accessibility.
But as they say, a picture tells a thousand words, so how many words is a flickering Flash animation worth?
You know I first looked a this, saw the corner flash then stop. Okay that was a little intense. So not WCAG 2. “Okay” I thinks, “that’s it.” Its bad but not too bad.
Then I moved the cursor by accident over the masthead. OMG, they have a jumping vector script and the enclosed items become hyper flashing blocks of colour. This was so intense that after 30 seconds I was feeling very ill, and now have mild headache. In fact I feel a little unwell. Now normally this stuff doesn’t bother me.
If I was the UTS people I would pull this ASAP.
After a long day of staring at a computer screen, books, magazines, print-outs and other visual calisthenics, that animation affected me badly; and quickly.
And I have good eye-sight, damn it!
However, here’s a better argument to take to UTS: I would no longer consider attending a course on interactive multimedia (including the Masters course I had heard such positive things about) if this sort of thing is possible from the same dept. Sorry, but I’ll take my hard-earned elsewhere.
Steve
PS: Very nice post Lisa :)
Not to mention the white text in the left-hand column losing contrast with the gradient background.
Someone might be reluctant to change the header due to some strange emotional attachment… Smells like “Lars and the Real Girl”.
Well they’re some really interesting comments, thanks guys.
Steve, I know what your saying about attending a course there. The site’s been built pretty well in terms of standards and accessibility and even has a page detailing how accessible the site is. But stuff like this just isn’t cool.
I’d really like to know how they’ve justified it to themselves.
To be honest, and this might be a bit harsh, the Flash is very late 90’s. Joshua Davis was doing far more complex Flash design than this on Praystation back in ‘99.
it’s interesting that Steve and Gary both had physical reactions to the animation too. Steve, I know you get migraines. How about you Gary?
Dylan you’re right about the colour contrast too. I just checked it and both the white on grey and turquoise on grey fail WCAG 1 and 2 on Luminosity and brightness/difference.
Whao, I just saw it and thought, “ok, not as bad as some things I’ve seen”… until I rolled my mouse over the masthead.
Ow ow ow. I only viewed it for a few seconds but it was enough to be very disquieting.
The page fails on some accessibility criteria, but from a design perspective some decisions seem rather misguided. The flash element begs the question “why?” – I see very little value in it, aesthetic or otherwise. The other devices like the gradients are too dramatic, and as others have pointed out don’t compliment the content, just distract from it and make it difficult to read.
Needs a bit of work, really. I hope the course offers more than the site design would have you believe as I’m considering enrolling into this course in future as well…
If you DON’T suffer from epilepsy, just load the sucker up on a big monitor when you get home from a particularly demented night out. You’ll see it in a whole new light…
…and it looks decidedly arse. But the accessibility angle should override any personal aesthetic considerations…this is demonstrably dangerous, and knowingly leaving it up is akin to GBH.
I agree that it is dreadful. Some suggestions for testing:
1) the “comparison with knowns” method – comparing a few known rates with what you have. I made an example years ago for this that is still live at http://ncam.wgbh.org/richmedia/media/flicker_demo.html
2) The Trace Center has an evaluation tool (http://trace.wisc.edu/peat/) but it only reads AVI’s, so you need to get a screen-recording tool that outputs to AVI to have this programmatic test done.
Neither is ideal, but it’s a start…
AWK