A showcase for attractive and accessible websites
There’s this long-standing myth that accessible sites have to be dull and boring. Web developers and designers who have embraced web standards and accessibility know that it is just a myth, but in the rest of the web industry many people still think that accessible sites cannot look good.
To help dispel the myth, Mike Cherim has launched Accessites.org, a showcase for websites that prove that accessibility does not mean boring and basic. Each submitted site is judged by the team Mike has pulled together, and needs to meet certain criteria in the following categories to be listed:
- Accessibility
- Web standards
- Stunning good looks
- Attention to detail
A great initiative that I hope catches on. Got a site that you think should be showcased on Accessites.org? Submit it!
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About the author
Roger Johansson is a Swedish web professional specialising in web standards, accessibility, and usability. More about me and this site.
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Comments
thanks for the link love, roger :)
Nice link. However, I did notice a few things. Remember what you were saying the other day about over-styling form elements? I must say their form was rather ugly. Not to mention, I couldnt even get it to work inside of safari - I had to use firefox to even submit the site.
Other than that, I think it will be a nice resource!
Peace,
Great link, blogrolled...
Excellent. I'm part of a team striving to make the Commonwealth of Massachusetts web portal accessible and hope to gain much inspiration from this. Thanks.
Thanks for the hat tip Roger!
@Nate: The accessites team is always wanting to hear first hand about such problems - so they can be rectified. Contact me via email if you like and I'll forward to the team to investigate :) I have a gmail.com address that begins thatstandardsguy (filthy spam bots).
Regards, Karl
'bout damn time someone did this. I think we've all had a site like this in mind for quite a while, we just didn't want the responsibility of running it.
Anyway, I'll say thanks again for pointing out this link Roger.
Thank you for this Roger. I wondered why we were suddenly "found" today. ;-)
Regarding the Safari issue. Thanks for the heads up. We are looking into it at this time.
Nate, I wanted to personally thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. I've just checked it out and discovered the problem. We were using a padding-top on our label tags, instead of a margin top. That simple change appears to have solved the problem. Please let us know if you encounter anymore issues with the forms.
Great concept for a site...I hope it succeeds to bring it's 'not a myth' message to as many businesses as possible. One small thing though: Is anyone else getting a vertical-stripey look to the edge background (grey-ish)? I am...and I have quickly found I can't look at it for too long because it starts to make me feel a bit nauseous! (Which might not be too hot for a site about accessibility!)...To clean that up would be a fairly quick fix and it would help...IMO. I'm not going to comment more than that about the site because it's still quite new - and I'll have to see which direction it's heading. The Team List is impressive though, so it should go far. :)
RE: Jonathan No problem, I didn't post it to be rude - however - I should have emailed first. I noticed it was fixed as well - I am just so accustomed to using Safari at this point.
To the others (Karl, Mike) - I apologize for the earlier posting of the error (versus email), and am glad you guys got it fixed!
Keep up the great work!
Peace,
@Nate: No problem, it's all good.
@Matt: would you mind showing us a screenshot of the problem?
Thanks.
Thanks for the link. Looks like we're going to be busy now! Damn you and your (extremely) popular site ;)
patrick: You're welcome. And thanks for sending a bunch of people this way the other day ;-).
Nate: Aesthetic taste varies from one person to another, so let's just say that I have seen forms that match my taste better.
Karl, Mike, Andy: Hope you get a bunch of submissions now!
Mike: Sure! Please review at: www.mattrobin.com/accessites_stripey.jpg
Hello Roger.
As a member of Accessites.org, I just wanted to add to the thanks that has already been expressed. Looks like we received a bunch of submission now, so it should keep us out of trouble for a bit :)
Cheers! Marco Battilana
Thank you Matt. I guess that would be the background you're referring to. I never realized it would have such an effect on a person and for that I offer my apologies. Might I suggest, for your use, that you go to our settings page and choose the "Apple Crisp" style. It is of lower contrast, but you may like it better. It is actually the style I use for the site (my favorite one so far). We have a bit of a CSS Zen Garden thing going on in behind the scenes as some of the members are making alternate style sheets. Again, thanks.
Mike: I'll take a look at that...thanks for the reply. :)
And....best of luck with the project!
Hmm... the project was started in the end of December 2005. Since this is the only "CSS Gallery" which really aims to showcase the best example of accessible tableless design, how come it hasn't been mentioned on popular blogs earlier?
Vitaly: No idea. I have known about the project since early January but haven't had the time to mention it until now.
It's a good concept, so I'm sure it'll turn out to be a good source of inspiration.
Not overly keen on the actual site though. That inner frame on the right menu bounces about terribly when you scroll up and down.. really hurts my eyes, to be honest.
I like the fact that the worksheets are available for view although the lack of abbreviation was slightly confusing.
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