Argh, web sites...
Jul. 14th, 2015 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pheloniusfriarMaybe I'm getting more curmudgeonly in my old age, but I just spent 15 minutes sending an irate email to another organization with a staggeringly shitacular web site. Take a look and let me know if I'm being unreasonable in my very negative analysis...
I would have liked to participate in your campaign to generate interest in research in Ontario, but the web site is very poorly designed and hostile to interaction.
http://yourontarioresearch.ca/game-changers/
I don't click on links that don't let me know where they land (there was no hint that the images weren't going to be links), the "alt" text was not displaying (huge accessibility issues... I am using the current version of Firefox, fyi), and the photos don't necessarily tell me what the research area actually is that is behind it. I am busy and don't have time to play "guess the functionality" with a web site -- there are no captions, there are no navigational cues... it's an impenetrable wall of vaguely related images, not a user interface. I am a huge supporter of raising public awareness of issues related to research (in Ontario and everywhere else on Earth), so visiting this site after a friend sent me the link because they thought I would like it actually made me angry (if you hadn't guessed by the fact that I was upset enough to write this email). I have seen this sort of site before and it is, at best, kitchy; but at its worst, it is an exclusionary design concept that isolates each piece of information rather than presenting an integrated informational experience. Who would have the time or patience to click on 50 images to unlock the link to a page that they would then have to read before "voting"? Who is your audience for this web experience? What value is the vote tally that this web site will presumably result in? There is not even an indication, that I could see, of what effect my vote would have other than the simple joy of clicking on a button on a web site. I would have expected better from the Council of Ontario Universities.
Yours sincerely,
PF
P.S. And seriously? A wheelchair device for the generic research area of "accessible transportation"? What about people with mental or cognitive disabilities? Invisible disabilities that impede the use of public transit? This is 2015, not 1975! And that's just the tip of the iceberg with your choice of images and products. Nuns? What does the image of a nun have to do with the general notion of public health? Not to mention it displays a huge insensitivity to First Nations people after the recent release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on residential schools. I realize that these two instances refer to specific inventions or people, but as an interface to the research subjects, they are highly problematic. I could go on (I could write a paper on the subject there is so much to work with), but I will spare you any further analysis.
I would have liked to participate in your campaign to generate interest in research in Ontario, but the web site is very poorly designed and hostile to interaction.
http://yourontarioresearch.ca/game-changers/
I don't click on links that don't let me know where they land (there was no hint that the images weren't going to be links), the "alt" text was not displaying (huge accessibility issues... I am using the current version of Firefox, fyi), and the photos don't necessarily tell me what the research area actually is that is behind it. I am busy and don't have time to play "guess the functionality" with a web site -- there are no captions, there are no navigational cues... it's an impenetrable wall of vaguely related images, not a user interface. I am a huge supporter of raising public awareness of issues related to research (in Ontario and everywhere else on Earth), so visiting this site after a friend sent me the link because they thought I would like it actually made me angry (if you hadn't guessed by the fact that I was upset enough to write this email). I have seen this sort of site before and it is, at best, kitchy; but at its worst, it is an exclusionary design concept that isolates each piece of information rather than presenting an integrated informational experience. Who would have the time or patience to click on 50 images to unlock the link to a page that they would then have to read before "voting"? Who is your audience for this web experience? What value is the vote tally that this web site will presumably result in? There is not even an indication, that I could see, of what effect my vote would have other than the simple joy of clicking on a button on a web site. I would have expected better from the Council of Ontario Universities.
Yours sincerely,
PF
P.S. And seriously? A wheelchair device for the generic research area of "accessible transportation"? What about people with mental or cognitive disabilities? Invisible disabilities that impede the use of public transit? This is 2015, not 1975! And that's just the tip of the iceberg with your choice of images and products. Nuns? What does the image of a nun have to do with the general notion of public health? Not to mention it displays a huge insensitivity to First Nations people after the recent release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on residential schools. I realize that these two instances refer to specific inventions or people, but as an interface to the research subjects, they are highly problematic. I could go on (I could write a paper on the subject there is so much to work with), but I will spare you any further analysis.
