UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Promoting Your Community Forum Showcase Accessible Communities!

In my years of experience as an hobbyist Web developer, I would say that the most important principle I've learned is to keep it accessible. I'm sure you've heard the phrase many times before -- Nielsen has practically coined the term all by himself. But what does it mean to "keep it accessible," and how should you go about implementing that idea on your forums? Furthermore, why should you even care if that sixty-five-year-old woman (who probably makes up only 0.000057% of your visitors) complains about the text being too small? Let's investigate.

What we're aiming for here is to make your forums' content available to all devices -- past, present, and future. My reasoning behind this is that someone using Netscape 4 should be able to read your content just as easily as someone using Internet Explorer 6 or some future Web appliance, possibly even a microwave or fridge. What's the best and generally easiest way to accomplish this harmony of accessibility?

Style Sheets, my friend, are here. And even better, they're just waiting for you to use them on your site -- maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe three months down the road. But at any rate, you absolutely need to be using Cascading Style Sheets. Here's why.

If you do a good job of implementing Style Sheets, then you have separated your content (the "stuff") from your stylistic aspects (the Style Sheets). And this is where the fun starts. On most of the sites I make, I use @import to hide complex styles from Netscape 4. However, because I used structurally correct markup elements, the page still looks great, albeit a little boring. With newer browsers, users can select between their own Style Sheet or two or three or seven of mine that I've defined. Or, they can turn off Style Sheets entirely and leave the device to render the page how it likes, which is perfectly alright with me.

If you're already using CSS on your forums, here are some ways you can improve accessibility, instantly. If you've yet to jump into the pond that is Cascading Style Sheets, take note: these tips will benefit you, as well.

• Never define font sizes smaller than 9px -- they will be unreadable on a Mac.
• Even better than using fixed units for font sizes (see above), you should use units that are relative. Examples are x-small, small, medium, large, x-large, etc. This way, people can adjust font size to what looks good to them.
• Don't use colors for text that would be hard for anyone other than yourself to read. Yes, that pretty much does exclude neon pink as a viable option.
• Serve up multiple Style Sheets and let users pick which one they want to use. An off-site example .
• Don't use any non-standard markup tags on your pages.

Thanks for the Tips Matt. I don't think my forums can be read by all browsers. At least I don't think so.

More accessibility tips:

Don't forget ALT tags in images. There are many reasons for having them:

• The user might have graphics turned off in his/her browser
• They might be a blind user who can't see what text is on the graphics, therefore they must use special software that can only read alt tags
• The graphics don't load, or take forever to load
• The graphics are unreadable or don't make themselves clear as to what they are or what function they perform (such as an indistinguishable menu item)

Don't use splash or intro pages on your site. EVER. Doing so proves that you are an uneducated moron who cares nothing about website usability and accessibility, not to mention your site visitor's time.
Keep every page on your site easily accessible within three or four clicks (unless you run a site so large and complex that you have a directory heirarchy as vast as Yahoo's). Don't make it difficult for users to find information. Put up a good site search, add a site map page, make clear text links, and make sure all navigational elements are clearly and appropriately labeled.

Got text on graphics? Make sure they are large enough for all to read as well as crisp and clear in appearance. Don't give everyone headaches from squinting their eyes when they try to make the words.

Thanks for the Tips...

I tested my page without images... It's not really readable...

No images? What horror...

wrong text...

[This message has been edited by joking-down (edited 04-01-2002).]