I do see where Lachlan is coming from. I have recently updated two websites both of which were almost purely images. Speaking to the designer who originally created one of the sites it became apparent that his background in "for print" design had lead him down theis path. "Otherwise my work could render almost anyway depending on the setting people have on their machines." was essentialy his attitude. I know its not true but it is his perception.
The second one was not quite as bad, but I still only managed to get the job of effectivelky reskinning and replacing some of the images with text. Again it was the perception that the company's brand would in some way be trashed by allowing the web to render it. These are really difficult people to convert, yes they want a better Google rating (in fact any Google rating would do) but they are frightened of the change. It has however, lead to more work for me. Having just completed the re-skinning. I am now talking to them about a complete rework and they are up for it. Frustrating...yes, but we get there in the end. You really do have to hold their hand. I think we tend to forget that what we consider everyday tasks and challenges might as well be rocket science for these people. anyway thats my twopennarth. Giles -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Lachlan Hardy Sent: 27 May 2004 01:25 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] legal requirements for accessability (bringing clients to the table) Thanks folks for the great responses. I will certainly incorporate some of the things you've mentioned into my business behaviours from now on However, it seems fairly apparent that none of you have encountered the problems I'm talking about (except Marc, I think). Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. The kind of clients I get are clients who think this is a great site : www.canadianlakes.com.au And it does look quite nice. Pity about the fact that it still isn't indexed by Google after it has been up for around two years. And you folks can easily spot all the other problems such as the poor navigation, table layout, and the fact that many pages have no text on them whatsoever. They don't even use CSS to colour fonts or links (but who needs to when you can use yet another image?). A year ago, that site had no text at all If you still don't know what I'm talking about; if you've never encountered this, don't trouble yourselves. You're lucky Mike Kear says "It's my opinion that if you are losing business because you are quoting on standards-compliant sites, then you're doing it all wrong. Standards compliance should give you a competitive advantage over the other mugs who haven't learned about standards yet." I totally agree with you, Mike, which is why I adopted standards and attempt to provide accessibility. Unfortunately, it is not working for me. So, what do you do? Thanks again, folks Lachlan ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ***************************************************** ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help *****************************************************
