ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

The COI have published a new consultation document — Public consultation on browser standards for public sector websites. (Spotted via Bruce).
Now before reading what the document has to say, I’ve read Bruce’s opinion on it.
the central premise of the draft guidelines is fundamentally flawed.Bruce Lawson: UK government draft browser guidance is daft browser guidance
The [...]

Read: Public Sector Browser Standards »

(as spotted on Señor Lawson’s blog)
It appears that the NFB have reached a settlement with Target.com in their contention that Target’s website was inaccessible to disabled people and in breach of some law or other…
This tends to polarise opinion; you get one camp who don’t feel that the free market should be forced to choose [...]

Read: Target Acquired: Four Cheers! »

I read with interest that the BBC news site was trialling…
linking from within the body of news stories to related background materialBBC Editors Blog: New ways of linking
Well, that’s nice, I thought. The BBC have finally worked out how everyone else has been using the internet since 1995. You know, when you find some relevant [...]

Read: Bad, Bad, Bad-Linking Beeb »

Yes, it’s soon to be silver surfer week which is all about championing digital equality and inclusion for older people. They are even offering some free computing books. The whole ‘iTea and Biscuits’ thing is their idea as an alternative name for the Silver Surfer week, and I have to say I like it.
For [...]

Read: iTea and Biscuits »

Or rather, why should you offer text to speech software on your site?
Generally, the reason is given ‘to make the site more accessible to people with disabilities’. This is usually the model that companies who produce TTS software use to try and persuade people to use their product.
Some forms of text to speech software are [...]

Read: Why Use Text to Speech Software? »

I attended the virtual Security Seminar The Evolving Security Landscape today, as brought to us by those nice lads and lasses at The Register.
Slightly disappointingly for a technology seminar, we were specifically instructed to view the seminar with Internet Explorer, as the slides wouldn’t work in Firefox. Bad form, guys. Get this one sorted for [...]

Read: The Evolving Security Landscape »

…also known as Better Connected Critique Volume XXVI in a series of … um … I don’t think Roman numerals go that high.
Webcredible have been reviewing the ‘leading’ UK local council websites for usability — or at least those 20 sites which have been identified as the leading top 20 websites by the 2008 Better [...]

Read: Webcredible vs Better connected »

After attending the PSF Event ‘The Future of Local Authority Websites and How They Are Measured’ I had some degree of confidence that SOCITM were listening to what the audience had to say, and that the Better Connected report in subsequent years would improve.
This was in now small measure due to Richard Steel’s attitude, [...]

Read: Better Connected: Sigh - Here we go again… »

Found on a website when trying to read the latest gossip about Newcastle United:
DA.EmptyDataReader.GetOrdinal(String name) in D:\XXXXXXX\Public Site\XXXXXXX\DA\EmptyDataReader.cs:92Data.TextResources.LoadCache(Int64 cultureId) in D:\XXXXXXX\Public Site\XXXXXXX\Data\TextResources.cs:50
…althought I’ve removed the references to the site itself, obviously. Showing this sort of information is not a good idea.
Can I just point out that if you are writing a .NET application — [...]

Read: In Error (2) »

Thanks to both Emma and Jeremy for this: there’s not much I can add to what they’ve already said, but I’ll tell it in my own words…
Basically, what has happened is that the Civil Service have published a code for online participation for civil servants. These are:

Be credible — Be accurate, fair, thorough and transparent
Be [...]

Read: Civil Service & Social Media »