uni/COMP2410/a2.html

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        <TITLE>COMP2410: Assignment 2 - Website Critique</TITLE>
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<H1>A report on the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and Beijing Olympic Games websites</H1>

<H2>Introduction</H2>

<P>
This document aims to provide an objective comparison between the websites for
the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (<TT>http://en.beijing-2008.org/</TT>), and the
2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne
(<TT>http://www.melbourne2006.com.au/</TT>), herein referred to as the
Beijing and Melbourne websites, respectively.
</P>

<P>
This document will focus in particular in the areas of:
<UL>
<LI>target audience
<LI>site design and structure
<LI>useability, particularly for those with disabilities
<LI>design methodologies used
<LI>standards compliance
</UL>

<P>
Finally, this document will identify and highlight any deficiencies in the
above areas, and put forward recommendations for improvement.
</P>

<H2>Target audience</H2>

<P>
The target audience for the Beijing website is primarily for
English-speaking members of the global community, who are interested in the
progress of the 2008 Olympic Games. As there are still four years until these
games, this website is reporting on fairly procedural and bureaucratic
matters, and so is mainly going to be of interest to people wanting to
follow the early planning processes for these Games. The main purpose this
website probably serves today is to provide a degree of transparency to the
organising processes for the Beijing games. One would expect that as the
Beijing Games draw closer, this website will evolve into the more
traditional promotional website, like the Athens website is today. The
copyright for the website is declared to be held by the Beijing Organizing
Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, so one would presume that it
is BOCOG that sponsored its creation.
</P>

<P>
The Melbourne website is more promotionally oriented, probably largely to do
with the fact that there are less than two years until these Games commence,
and there isn't another Commonwealth Games between now and the Melbourne Games
starting. Also, as the start of the Games is much closer, a lot of the
bureaucratic processes would have already run their course. This website would
also be targeted at members of the global community who are interested to see
how these Games are progressing, but with slightly more of an intention to be
attending the Games. The Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Pty Ltd corporate
has asserted copyright over the Melbourne website, and so is presumably the
sponsor of it.
</P>

<P>
To summarise, the Beijing website, in its current format, is mostly
reporting on the progress of the Beijing Organising Committee for the
Olympic Games (BOCOG), whereas the Melbourne website is more promotionally
oriented, focused on targeting potential tourists, who may attend the
Commonwealth Games. Neither website specifically credits an individual or
organisation as having been their creator, so it is presumed that either
they were created in-house, or the outsourcers did not receive credit as part
of the outsourcing arrangements for the creation of each website.
</P>

<H2>Site design and structure</H2>

<P>
The Beijing website is obviously developed with Chinese as its natural
language, and translated into English, due to the way some of the website
reads. From inspecting the HTML source, it is not immediately obvious how
the website was constructed, however there are some non-standard tags that
suggest a Content Management System (CMS) called Sohu was employed. The site
makes extensive use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).  This website is also
making use of the HTTP/1.1 Language Negotiation feature, so English users
are directed to the English website, and Chinese users are directed to the
Chinese website, and both users can access the main URL
<TT>http://www.beijing-2008.org/</TT>. Interestingly enough, clients that do
not set the Accept-Language HTTP header are redirected to the English
website, so making this the default language for clients that do not support
Language Negotiation.
</P>

<P>
Structurally, the front page provides space for some graphics, and the
most recent news bulletin, with links to the headlines for more recent
bulletins beneath the current featured bulletin. On either side of the
centrepiece, are links to various other parts of the website. The Features
section is displayed in single-line summary on the left, and in slightly
more detail, with images, on the right. The webpage employs JavaScript and
Macromedia Flash technology.
<P>

<P>
The most notable flaws on the front page are that there seems to be a Y2K-type
bug with the display of the current date. For example, today is displayed as
01/05/104. Noticeably absent is a link to a site map, so there is no
immediately obvious mechanism for gaining an overall view of the website's
hierarchy. Also, one is given the impression that the designers were struggling
for content, duplicating the Features information in both the left and right
sidebars. Certainly it would unclutter the front page a little to remove this
duplication. An observation made with regards to the implementation of CSS on
this website is that the CSS data is embedded within the HTML source, which
does not exploit the central manageability feature that having a CSS in a
separate file gives. Finally, there is a search function on the front page,
made obvious by the presence of a search button, however, the form field for
entering search criteria, to the left of the search button, is completely
invisible (in Mozilla Firefox) due to the way it is rendered.
</P>

<P>
From inspecting the HTML source of the Melbourne website, again, no secrets
are given away with regards to the software employed for its creation. The
website makes use of JavaScript, Macromedia Flash and Cascading Style Sheet
technologies. This website does employ the method of implementing the
stylesheets in a separate file, allowing for quick, easy and central changes
to the style of the website if so desired.
</P>

<P>
The structure of the website consists of an emulated frameset, with a
persistent navigation bar on the left of the page. This navigation bar has
JavaScript expanding menus. There are also consistent navigation links at
the bottom of each page. The front page has space for an image (which is
related to current news on the site), and links to recent previous news
articles. The front page is used to convey announcements to the site's
audience. There is a link to a site map, which is laid out as a hierarchical
summary of links on the site.
</P>

<P>
The main error found on this website, is that on the front page, there is
currently an error in the HTML source, and an HTML comment is not correctly
opened. This is resulting in what should be a comment appearing at the top
of the page, which looks quite out of place. Strangely, this error only
seems to manifest itself in Gecko based browsers, such as Mozilla and
Mozilla Firebird. Internet Explorer, even in the HTML source, does not show
such an error even in the HTML source.
</P>

<H2>Useability</H2>

<P>
To assess the useability of both websites, they were viewed in Mozilla
Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows, both with and without images
enabled, Mozilla on Linux, and Lynx on Linux. This gave an indication of how
the websites behaved in a wide variety of client browser situations. A
separate assessment was made of the dependence on graphics for navigation
and communication of important information. For the visually impaired, all
that would be available would be the text components of the websites, and
the contents of any image tag ALT attributes. This was a significant issue
with the useability of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games website, which actually
resulted in legal action.
<CITE>
<TT>
http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/sydney-olympics-blind-accessibility-decision.html<BR>
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s160905.htm<BR>
</TT>
</CITE>

<P>
Accessing the Beijing website with Internet Explorer resulted in a prompt
to install the Chinese Simplified language pack. Cancelling this
installation request still resulted in a readable English page being loaded.
Interestingly, the Y2K-type bug with the current date is not present when
viewed with Internet Explorer, which suggests that the problem is actually a
JavaScript implementation bug with Mozilla Firefox, or some sort of browser
detection logic error in the JavaScript on this site. Navigation around the
site resulted in further prompts to install the Chinese Simplified language
pack. This is probably because the character-set used is gb2312, whereas
most Western websites would use the utf-8 or ASCII character-sets.
</P>

<P>
The navigation links on the left make use of JavaScript to expand downwards
when clicked. For example, the BOCOG link, when clicked, expands downwards
to reveal "About us", "BOCOG leaders" and "Contact us". With JavaScript
disabled, the website detects this and renders the sub-links all the time,
for all of the links on the left, so there is no loss of functionality for
users that have a non-JavaScript capable browser, or have JavaScript
disabled for security reasons.
<P>

<P>
When browsing the Beijing website with Mozilla Firebird, the most noticeable
differences in the way the front page of the website was rendered were the
fact that the top banner took up more height on the page, forcing the rest
of the page to appear lower down on the screen. Also, as mentioned earlier,
the current date has the year displayed incorrectly, and the search text
input field does not have a border around it, making it quite difficult to
discern. The navigation links referred to in the previous paragraph are all
shown in their expanded form, as if JavaScript was disabled. There may be a
logic error in the JavaScript for this website, or the manner in which it
determines if JavaScript is enabled.
<P>

<P>
When viewing the website with Lynx, the navigation links that are normally
displayed on the left always appear first on the page, which makes it
slightly difficult to determine where the content of the specific page begins
and the persistent navigation links end, but the content is otherwise fairly
legible when viewed as just plain text. One complaint is that some of the
titles are implemented as graphics, without the use of an ALT attribute. For
example, the significance of the Features sidebar on the right of the front
page is somewhat lost without being able to determine that it is indeed a
sidebar devoted to features.
</P>

<P>
Browsing the website with images disabled (in Internet Explorer), but with
JavaScript enabled, is quite a sobering experience. All of the navigation on
the left sidebar is implemented with graphics that do not have an ALT
attribute, so one is presented with a number of anonymous image placeholder
boxes. Clicking on the boxes expands them down as before, presenting the
viewer with specific links, however there is no indication that one
<I>should</I> click on these image placeholders. On the BOCOG News page,
whilst the images themselves do not have ALT attributes, they do have
captions, however for a blind user using text-to-speech software, this may
be verbalised out of context, confusing the user somewhat.
</P>

<P>
As the Melbourne website's primary language is English, it is difficult to
tell if it is making use of language negotiation, but it is assumed not to
be, as the first language of the Commonwealth is English.
<P>

<P>
The Melbourne website does not make extensive use of graphics for
navigation, and it does seem to have learned from the Sydney Organising
Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) experience. The one photograph on
the front page does have an ALT attribute, describing what it is.
</P>

<P>
The navigation bar on the left of the Melbourne website also makes use of
JavaScript in a similar manner to the Beijing website, however, the menu is
implemented entirely as textual links. With JavaScript disabled, all the
menus appear in their uncollapsed form, so again, there is no loss of
functionality for browsers that do not support JavaScript or have it
disabled.
</P>

<P>
Viewing the Melbourne website with images disabled results in a slightly odd
colour scheme compared to how it looks with images enabled, however this
will not be an issue to blind visitors, but non-visually impaired visitors
that have a low-bandwidth link will get a slightly more difficult to read
page, due to the colour scheme used, and the dependency on the background
colour of the navigation bar.
</P>

<P>
The Melbourne site makes good use of image ALT attributes throughout, even
for cosmetic images, where their presence or absence really only impacts on
the site's aesthetics, not its functionality.
</P>

<P>
Due to the fact that the Melbourne website does not make extensive use of
tables for its formatting, the page renders quite cleanly in Lynx. The
navigation bar always appears first, fully expanded, and then the body of
the page appears below it.
</P>

<H2>Design methodologies</H2>

The Beijing website uses a user-centric design methodology. The layout is
not overly tied to organisational structure, and aims to give the visitor
ready access to a number of different sources of information. It does not
overemphasise the use of multimedia technologies like Macromedia Flash,
whilst it does make some use of it.

The Melbourne website also uses a user-centric design methodology. It
presents a clean, uncluttered front page, and provides a number of links
based on potential information requirements of website visitors. It also
makes use of Macromedia Flash technology, but not in any form that detracts
from the useability of the website by not having it available.

<H2>Standards compliance</H2>

<P>
Unfortunately, the Beijing website does not contain a document type
definition (DTD) within its HTML source, and so the World Wide Web
Consortium's HTML validator was unable to automatically validate it against
the website designer's intended document type. Attempting to validate the
HTML as 4.01 Transitional (or any earlier HTML standard) and XHTML 1.0
Transitional  resulted in numerous errors, so it is safe to say that the
HTML for this website is not compliant with any particular version of the
HTML or XHTML specification.
</P>

<P>
The Melbourne website does declare that it is using the XHTML 1.0
Transitional DTD, however, the W3C's HTML validator also finds a number of
errors in the HTML. Interestingly, it seems to be considering some of the
JavaScript code as HTML, which suggests that it has not been properly
escaped and encapsulated in the correct manner. This website is not
compliant with the specification that it is claiming to adhere to by its
DTD.
</P>

<H2>Summary</H2>

<P>
The Beijing website could be improved in the areas of standards compliance,
by first declaring a DTD, and then attempting to comply with it. It could
also be slightly less dependent on images for navigation purposes, and use
the ALT attribute wherever it does. Finally, the JavaScript code it uses
could be more browser-independent, resulting in a more consistent
cross-browser viewing experience.
</P>

<P>
The Melbourne website is significantly more accessible than the Beijing
website, and its main area of improvement is standards compliance. It
already declares a DTD, it just needs to comply with it.
</P>

<P>
In conclusion, both websites have room for improvement, however the
Melbourne website rates higher in terms of its current useability and
accessibility, both for unimpaired and visually-impaired visitors.
</P>

<H2>Recommended improvements</H2>

<H3>For the Beijing website</H3>

<OL>
<LI>Use a DTD
<LI>Comply with that DTD
<LI>Separate the stylesheet data from the HTML source
<LI>Use ALT attributes for significant images
<LI>Have better cross-browser support
</OL>

<P>
Using a Document Type Definition (DTD), within the HTML source will allow
for more accurate automated checking of the HTML against the declared DTD.
Complying with this DTD is the desirable thing to do for the website to
behave in an expected manner. Separating the stylesheet from the HTML source
will allow the web designers to leverage central manageability of the styles
across the entire website, without having to touch the HTML source. This may
be irrelevant, as there is the possibility all of this is handled by the
content management system (CMS) that is used. Using the ALT attribute for
images will avoid the risk of litigation that SOCOG experienced, as well as
providing a better browsing experience for blind visitors to the website,
and finally having better cross-browser support will allow for a more
consistent appearance for the website, regardless of what browser the
visitor is using.
</P>

<H3>For the Melbourne website</H3>

<OL>
<LI>Comply with the DTD specified
<LI>Provide multi-lingual support
</OL>

<P>
There isn't the significant room for improvement with the Melbourne website.
Complying with the DTD used in the HTML will improve standards support and
validation results. Providing multi-lingual support will allow greater
accessibility beyond English speaking visitors, however this may not be the
target audience, so it may not be of importance to the site's sponsor(s).
</P>

<H2>References</H2>

<P>
Independent Living Institute, 'Bruce Lindsay Maguire vs Sydney Olympic
Committee for the Olympic Games', <B><A
href="http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/sydney-olympics-blind-accessibility-decision.html">http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/sydney-olympics-blind-accessibility-decision.html</A></B>.
Last updated Tue, 03 Feb 2004 12:37:24 GMT.
</P>

<P>
The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 'PM - SOCOG fails to address the
blind on their website', <B><A
href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s160905.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s160905.htm</A></B>.
Unknown modification time.
</P>

<P>
Lengel, James G. <I>The Web wizard's guide to web design</I>, Addison Wesley, 2002.
</P>

<HR>
I declare that, except where appropriately attributed, the content of the
files I have submitted for this assignment is entirely my own work, and has
not been produced, in whole or in part, by any other person.
(signed) Andrew Pollock
</BODY>
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1	<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
2	"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
3
4	<HTML>
5	<HEAD>
6	<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
7
8	<TITLE>COMP2410: Assignment 2 - Website Critique</TITLE>
9	</HEAD>
10	<BODY>
11
12	<H1>A report on the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and Beijing Olympic Games websites</H1>
13
14	<H2>Introduction</H2>
15
16	<P>
17	This document aims to provide an objective comparison between the websites for
18	the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (<TT>http://en.beijing-2008.org/</TT>), and the
19	2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne
20	(<TT>http://www.melbourne2006.com.au/</TT>), herein referred to as the
21	Beijing and Melbourne websites, respectively.
22	</P>
23
24	<P>
25	This document will focus in particular in the areas of:
26	<UL>
27	<LI>target audience
28	<LI>site design and structure
29	<LI>useability, particularly for those with disabilities
30	<LI>design methodologies used
31	<LI>standards compliance
32	</UL>
33
34	<P>
35	Finally, this document will identify and highlight any deficiencies in the
36	above areas, and put forward recommendations for improvement.
37	</P>
38
39	<H2>Target audience</H2>
40
41	<P>
42	The target audience for the Beijing website is primarily for
43	English-speaking members of the global community, who are interested in the
44	progress of the 2008 Olympic Games. As there are still four years until these
45	games, this website is reporting on fairly procedural and bureaucratic
46	matters, and so is mainly going to be of interest to people wanting to
47	follow the early planning processes for these Games. The main purpose this
48	website probably serves today is to provide a degree of transparency to the
49	organising processes for the Beijing games. One would expect that as the
50	Beijing Games draw closer, this website will evolve into the more
51	traditional promotional website, like the Athens website is today. The
52	copyright for the website is declared to be held by the Beijing Organizing
53	Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, so one would presume that it
54	is BOCOG that sponsored its creation.
55	</P>
56
57	<P>
58	The Melbourne website is more promotionally oriented, probably largely to do
59	with the fact that there are less than two years until these Games commence,
60	and there isn't another Commonwealth Games between now and the Melbourne Games
61	starting. Also, as the start of the Games is much closer, a lot of the
62	bureaucratic processes would have already run their course. This website would
63	also be targeted at members of the global community who are interested to see
64	how these Games are progressing, but with slightly more of an intention to be
65	attending the Games. The Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Pty Ltd corporate
66	has asserted copyright over the Melbourne website, and so is presumably the
67	sponsor of it.
68	</P>
69
70	<P>
71	To summarise, the Beijing website, in its current format, is mostly
72	reporting on the progress of the Beijing Organising Committee for the
73	Olympic Games (BOCOG), whereas the Melbourne website is more promotionally
74	oriented, focused on targeting potential tourists, who may attend the
75	Commonwealth Games. Neither website specifically credits an individual or
76	organisation as having been their creator, so it is presumed that either
77	they were created in-house, or the outsourcers did not receive credit as part
78	of the outsourcing arrangements for the creation of each website.
79	</P>
80
81	<H2>Site design and structure</H2>
82
83	<P>
84	The Beijing website is obviously developed with Chinese as its natural
85	language, and translated into English, due to the way some of the website
86	reads. From inspecting the HTML source, it is not immediately obvious how
87	the website was constructed, however there are some non-standard tags that
88	suggest a Content Management System (CMS) called Sohu was employed. The site
89	makes extensive use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This website is also
90	making use of the HTTP/1.1 Language Negotiation feature, so English users
91	are directed to the English website, and Chinese users are directed to the
92	Chinese website, and both users can access the main URL
93	<TT>http://www.beijing-2008.org/</TT>. Interestingly enough, clients that do
94	not set the Accept-Language HTTP header are redirected to the English
95	website, so making this the default language for clients that do not support
96	Language Negotiation.
97	</P>
98
99	<P>
100	Structurally, the front page provides space for some graphics, and the
101	most recent news bulletin, with links to the headlines for more recent
102	bulletins beneath the current featured bulletin. On either side of the
103	centrepiece, are links to various other parts of the website. The Features
104	section is displayed in single-line summary on the left, and in slightly
105	more detail, with images, on the right. The webpage employs JavaScript and
106	Macromedia Flash technology.
107	<P>
108
109	<P>
110	The most notable flaws on the front page are that there seems to be a Y2K-type
111	bug with the display of the current date. For example, today is displayed as
112	01/05/104. Noticeably absent is a link to a site map, so there is no
113	immediately obvious mechanism for gaining an overall view of the website's
114	hierarchy. Also, one is given the impression that the designers were struggling
115	for content, duplicating the Features information in both the left and right
116	sidebars. Certainly it would unclutter the front page a little to remove this
117	duplication. An observation made with regards to the implementation of CSS on
118	this website is that the CSS data is embedded within the HTML source, which
119	does not exploit the central manageability feature that having a CSS in a
120	separate file gives. Finally, there is a search function on the front page,
121	made obvious by the presence of a search button, however, the form field for
122	entering search criteria, to the left of the search button, is completely
123	invisible (in Mozilla Firefox) due to the way it is rendered.
124	</P>
125
126	<P>
127	From inspecting the HTML source of the Melbourne website, again, no secrets
128	are given away with regards to the software employed for its creation. The
129	website makes use of JavaScript, Macromedia Flash and Cascading Style Sheet
130	technologies. This website does employ the method of implementing the
131	stylesheets in a separate file, allowing for quick, easy and central changes
132	to the style of the website if so desired.
133	</P>
134
135	<P>
136	The structure of the website consists of an emulated frameset, with a
137	persistent navigation bar on the left of the page. This navigation bar has
138	JavaScript expanding menus. There are also consistent navigation links at
139	the bottom of each page. The front page has space for an image (which is
140	related to current news on the site), and links to recent previous news
141	articles. The front page is used to convey announcements to the site's
142	audience. There is a link to a site map, which is laid out as a hierarchical
143	summary of links on the site.
144	</P>
145
146	<P>
147	The main error found on this website, is that on the front page, there is
148	currently an error in the HTML source, and an HTML comment is not correctly
149	opened. This is resulting in what should be a comment appearing at the top
150	of the page, which looks quite out of place. Strangely, this error only
151	seems to manifest itself in Gecko based browsers, such as Mozilla and
152	Mozilla Firebird. Internet Explorer, even in the HTML source, does not show
153	such an error even in the HTML source.
154	</P>
155
156	<H2>Useability</H2>
157
158	<P>
159	To assess the useability of both websites, they were viewed in Mozilla
160	Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows, both with and without images
161	enabled, Mozilla on Linux, and Lynx on Linux. This gave an indication of how
162	the websites behaved in a wide variety of client browser situations. A
163	separate assessment was made of the dependence on graphics for navigation
164	and communication of important information. For the visually impaired, all
165	that would be available would be the text components of the websites, and
166	the contents of any image tag ALT attributes. This was a significant issue
167	with the useability of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games website, which actually
168	resulted in legal action.
169	<CITE>
170	<TT>
171	http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/sydney-olympics-blind-accessibility-decision.html<BR>
172	http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s160905.htm<BR>
173	</TT>
174	</CITE>
175
176	<P>
177	Accessing the Beijing website with Internet Explorer resulted in a prompt
178	to install the Chinese Simplified language pack. Cancelling this
179	installation request still resulted in a readable English page being loaded.
180	Interestingly, the Y2K-type bug with the current date is not present when
181	viewed with Internet Explorer, which suggests that the problem is actually a
182	JavaScript implementation bug with Mozilla Firefox, or some sort of browser
183	detection logic error in the JavaScript on this site. Navigation around the
184	site resulted in further prompts to install the Chinese Simplified language
185	pack. This is probably because the character-set used is gb2312, whereas
186	most Western websites would use the utf-8 or ASCII character-sets.
187	</P>
188
189	<P>
190	The navigation links on the left make use of JavaScript to expand downwards
191	when clicked. For example, the BOCOG link, when clicked, expands downwards
192	to reveal "About us", "BOCOG leaders" and "Contact us". With JavaScript
193	disabled, the website detects this and renders the sub-links all the time,
194	for all of the links on the left, so there is no loss of functionality for
195	users that have a non-JavaScript capable browser, or have JavaScript
196	disabled for security reasons.
197	<P>
198
199	<P>
200	When browsing the Beijing website with Mozilla Firebird, the most noticeable
201	differences in the way the front page of the website was rendered were the
202	fact that the top banner took up more height on the page, forcing the rest
203	of the page to appear lower down on the screen. Also, as mentioned earlier,
204	the current date has the year displayed incorrectly, and the search text
205	input field does not have a border around it, making it quite difficult to
206	discern. The navigation links referred to in the previous paragraph are all
207	shown in their expanded form, as if JavaScript was disabled. There may be a
208	logic error in the JavaScript for this website, or the manner in which it
209	determines if JavaScript is enabled.
210	<P>
211
212	<P>
213	When viewing the website with Lynx, the navigation links that are normally
214	displayed on the left always appear first on the page, which makes it
215	slightly difficult to determine where the content of the specific page begins
216	and the persistent navigation links end, but the content is otherwise fairly
217	legible when viewed as just plain text. One complaint is that some of the
218	titles are implemented as graphics, without the use of an ALT attribute. For
219	example, the significance of the Features sidebar on the right of the front
220	page is somewhat lost without being able to determine that it is indeed a
221	sidebar devoted to features.
222	</P>
223
224	<P>
225	Browsing the website with images disabled (in Internet Explorer), but with
226	JavaScript enabled, is quite a sobering experience. All of the navigation on
227	the left sidebar is implemented with graphics that do not have an ALT
228	attribute, so one is presented with a number of anonymous image placeholder
229	boxes. Clicking on the boxes expands them down as before, presenting the
230	viewer with specific links, however there is no indication that one
231	<I>should</I> click on these image placeholders. On the BOCOG News page,
232	whilst the images themselves do not have ALT attributes, they do have
233	captions, however for a blind user using text-to-speech software, this may
234	be verbalised out of context, confusing the user somewhat.
235	</P>
236
237	<P>
238	As the Melbourne website's primary language is English, it is difficult to
239	tell if it is making use of language negotiation, but it is assumed not to
240	be, as the first language of the Commonwealth is English.
241	<P>
242
243	<P>
244	The Melbourne website does not make extensive use of graphics for
245	navigation, and it does seem to have learned from the Sydney Organising
246	Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) experience. The one photograph on
247	the front page does have an ALT attribute, describing what it is.
248	</P>
249
250	<P>
251	The navigation bar on the left of the Melbourne website also makes use of
252	JavaScript in a similar manner to the Beijing website, however, the menu is
253	implemented entirely as textual links. With JavaScript disabled, all the
254	menus appear in their uncollapsed form, so again, there is no loss of
255	functionality for browsers that do not support JavaScript or have it
256	disabled.
257	</P>
258
259	<P>
260	Viewing the Melbourne website with images disabled results in a slightly odd
261	colour scheme compared to how it looks with images enabled, however this
262	will not be an issue to blind visitors, but non-visually impaired visitors
263	that have a low-bandwidth link will get a slightly more difficult to read
264	page, due to the colour scheme used, and the dependency on the background
265	colour of the navigation bar.
266	</P>
267
268	<P>
269	The Melbourne site makes good use of image ALT attributes throughout, even
270	for cosmetic images, where their presence or absence really only impacts on
271	the site's aesthetics, not its functionality.
272	</P>
273
274	<P>
275	Due to the fact that the Melbourne website does not make extensive use of
276	tables for its formatting, the page renders quite cleanly in Lynx. The
277	navigation bar always appears first, fully expanded, and then the body of
278	the page appears below it.
279	</P>
280
281	<H2>Design methodologies</H2>
282
283	The Beijing website uses a user-centric design methodology. The layout is
284	not overly tied to organisational structure, and aims to give the visitor
285	ready access to a number of different sources of information. It does not
286	overemphasise the use of multimedia technologies like Macromedia Flash,
287	whilst it does make some use of it.
288
289	The Melbourne website also uses a user-centric design methodology. It
290	presents a clean, uncluttered front page, and provides a number of links
291	based on potential information requirements of website visitors. It also
292	makes use of Macromedia Flash technology, but not in any form that detracts
293	from the useability of the website by not having it available.
294
295	<H2>Standards compliance</H2>
296
297	<P>
298	Unfortunately, the Beijing website does not contain a document type
299	definition (DTD) within its HTML source, and so the World Wide Web
300	Consortium's HTML validator was unable to automatically validate it against
301	the website designer's intended document type. Attempting to validate the
302	HTML as 4.01 Transitional (or any earlier HTML standard) and XHTML 1.0
303	Transitional resulted in numerous errors, so it is safe to say that the
304	HTML for this website is not compliant with any particular version of the
305	HTML or XHTML specification.
306	</P>
307
308	<P>
309	The Melbourne website does declare that it is using the XHTML 1.0
310	Transitional DTD, however, the W3C's HTML validator also finds a number of
311	errors in the HTML. Interestingly, it seems to be considering some of the
312	JavaScript code as HTML, which suggests that it has not been properly
313	escaped and encapsulated in the correct manner. This website is not
314	compliant with the specification that it is claiming to adhere to by its
315	DTD.
316	</P>
317
318	<H2>Summary</H2>
319
320	<P>
321	The Beijing website could be improved in the areas of standards compliance,
322	by first declaring a DTD, and then attempting to comply with it. It could
323	also be slightly less dependent on images for navigation purposes, and use
324	the ALT attribute wherever it does. Finally, the JavaScript code it uses
325	could be more browser-independent, resulting in a more consistent
326	cross-browser viewing experience.
327	</P>
328
329	<P>
330	The Melbourne website is significantly more accessible than the Beijing
331	website, and its main area of improvement is standards compliance. It
332	already declares a DTD, it just needs to comply with it.
333	</P>
334
335	<P>
336	In conclusion, both websites have room for improvement, however the
337	Melbourne website rates higher in terms of its current useability and
338	accessibility, both for unimpaired and visually-impaired visitors.
339	</P>
340
341	<H2>Recommended improvements</H2>
342
343	<H3>For the Beijing website</H3>
344
345	<OL>
346	<LI>Use a DTD
347	<LI>Comply with that DTD
348	<LI>Separate the stylesheet data from the HTML source
349	<LI>Use ALT attributes for significant images
350	<LI>Have better cross-browser support
351	</OL>
352
353	<P>
354	Using a Document Type Definition (DTD), within the HTML source will allow
355	for more accurate automated checking of the HTML against the declared DTD.
356	Complying with this DTD is the desirable thing to do for the website to
357	behave in an expected manner. Separating the stylesheet from the HTML source
358	will allow the web designers to leverage central manageability of the styles
359	across the entire website, without having to touch the HTML source. This may
360	be irrelevant, as there is the possibility all of this is handled by the
361	content management system (CMS) that is used. Using the ALT attribute for
362	images will avoid the risk of litigation that SOCOG experienced, as well as
363	providing a better browsing experience for blind visitors to the website,
364	and finally having better cross-browser support will allow for a more
365	consistent appearance for the website, regardless of what browser the
366	visitor is using.
367	</P>
368
369	<H3>For the Melbourne website</H3>
370
371	<OL>
372	<LI>Comply with the DTD specified
373	<LI>Provide multi-lingual support
374	</OL>
375
376	<P>
377	There isn't the significant room for improvement with the Melbourne website.
378	Complying with the DTD used in the HTML will improve standards support and
379	validation results. Providing multi-lingual support will allow greater
380	accessibility beyond English speaking visitors, however this may not be the
381	target audience, so it may not be of importance to the site's sponsor(s).
382	</P>
383
384	<H2>References</H2>
385
386	<P>
387	Independent Living Institute, 'Bruce Lindsay Maguire vs Sydney Olympic
388	Committee for the Olympic Games', <B><A
389	href="http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/sydney-olympics-blind-accessibility-decision.html">http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/sydney-olympics-blind-accessibility-decision.html</A></B>.
390	Last updated Tue, 03 Feb 2004 12:37:24 GMT.
391	</P>
392
393	<P>
394	The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 'PM - SOCOG fails to address the
395	blind on their website', <B><A
396	href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s160905.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s160905.htm</A></B>.
397	Unknown modification time.
398	</P>
399
400	<P>
401	Lengel, James G. <I>The Web wizard's guide to web design</I>, Addison Wesley, 2002.
402	</P>
403
404	<HR>
405	I declare that, except where appropriately attributed, the content of the
406	files I have submitted for this assignment is entirely my own work, and has
407	not been produced, in whole or in part, by any other person.
408	(signed) Andrew Pollock
409	</BODY>
410	</HTML>