This month features the theme of government related websites, and the general standard of entries is very good.
10 Downing Street
Validation: passed
Automated Accessibility: failed, But this was mainly due to the use of [em]border[/em] in img. which is a priority 2 error.
It is a very good attempt of a compliant site, nice structured mark-up.
They have a skip menu link but unfortunately they have fallen into the trap of using :
.skip {display: none;}
So it isn’t useable.
Again tabbing through the page isn’t easy, at least in firefox, though even using a mouse some links are difficult to discern. Even the main site menu, which would have been improved if the link background colour had changed, rather than just the link text.
The use of differing colours for links may be a usability issue to some.
But overall a very good effort. Considering how high profile this site is, they have made a good decision to move to a compliant site in my opinion.
Diputación Provincial de Huesca
Validation:passed
Automated Accessibility:passed
I don’t speak spanish!
It looks like they are missing skip navigation links, but I could be wrong. Tabbing through the site could have been easily improved with use of a:active, and a:focus.
Overall this is a very cleanly and nicely designed site.
National Crime Squad
Validation:passed
Automated Accessibility:failed, on a priority 2 checkpoint only
Tabbing through the site could have been easily improved with use of a:active, and a:focus. Though I am not sure whether the colours chosen for a:hover are ideal. Again using display:none for the skip navigation link.
But an impressive move for another high profile site.
Department for Employment & Learning, Northern Ireland
Validation: failed – but only a mistyped link
Automated Accessibility: passed
Which goes to show that these things are not always to be trusted.
First small review back in November
the confusing tab order is still there, but at least when tabbing through the page you can generally tell where you are. Their sitemap really shows up just how bad use of taborder can be.
On going into the site I noticed a Breadcrumb Trail all very good, though I do wonder how many people actually need that bit of information appearing on the screen.
However the site is maintained via a CMS and as such should be appluaded for its attempt at being compliant.
East Sussex County Council
Validation: failed, badly.
Automated Accessibility: failed
Although some thought has obviously gone into the deisgn of this the lack of validation could prove its downfall.
The site claims to be aiming for WAI AA, so hopefully they will address the issues that causes it to not validate.
So, who am I going to vote for this time, well I think it has to be Number 10. Because the site is so high profile, the effort that has gone into it should be recognised.