[Gllug] Perl Question - Spam Filter for NMS Form Mail

[Lesley Binks]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 02:48:07PM +0000, Ryan Cartwright wrote:
> 2009/2/9 Lesley Binks <lesleyb at pgcroft.net>:
> > There is a move/discipline/method to have Javascript 'fail gracefully' and be
> > unobtrusive meaning the site should function well without Javascript.
> > I think it is in response to the disability discrimination legislation
> > in the UK and the States.
> 
> Yes, If a site depends upon javascript for key functionality then it's
> likely to be blocking potential visitors. This has always been the
> case but the DDA brought an increased impetus for web designers to be
> concerned with some of those users.
> 
> > I've yet to combine a graceful failure with a captcha but I feel sure it
> > must be feasible to design to fail to the state of delivering an audio
> > output as the captcha even if this is server-side processing and not
> > client-side.
> 
> I would think the difficulty would be with providing a decent
> alternative to the captcha images which would not be used by the bots.
> Aural alternatives will exclude braille-interface users.
> 
I am lacking in knowledge of this area but I feel that a
braille or aural captcha is a form that could be interpreted by a bot as
it would reduce to some kind of look up to identify the sound or
braille code.  Therefore it couldn't be a captcha anymore.  I suspect 
the captcha has to remain a purely visual element.

> > I haven't used Javascript for site navigation for a very long while. I
> > think that is something that has fallen out of favour over the last few
> > years in the same way image maps have - precisely because of accessibility issues.
> 
> Image maps are fine if they have a good alternative. See here for a
> good example of that: http://www.cafamily.org.uk/inyourarea . This is
> generally the problem as I see it. Too many web designers are either
> lazy ( or under pressure from their bosses ) to spend enough time
> creating proper alternatives. Thus we end up with IE only sites, sites
> that render terribly slowly on dial-up and sites with minimal-but-poor
> accessibility. It's endemic of a "works on my machine" design process
> and it's as old as the hills.
> 
I would say it's also complete ignorance on the part of some site
designers - I have met people who insisted on building their own website 
for their company even though the site didn't render in FF or Opera etc 
Their viewpoint was they 'were working hard enough on it and didn't find 
this information useful at all! After all most people use IE and the
others just didn't count and weren't of interest'  As far as they were 
concerned it worked on their machine and that of their partner so what 
was the problem with the rest of the world. 

I am also aware of sites that are totally Frontpage exercises - even
down to trying to lift scripts from http://127.0.0.1...
Explaining why that won't work to some people who like to call
themselves web designers is another matter entirely.  They simply don't
appear to have a frame of reference in which to discuss the topic.
> Of course there's a valid argument which says that if including
> visually-impaired users should not exclude others who may not even
> bother with a visually uninspiring website. Add to that the fact that
> the world does not split into visually-impaired and the "the rest".
> I'm colour blind and certain colour combinations have been known to
> make me pass out, others can render text completely invisible. I don't
> use a screen reader and have otherwise good vision. I would generally
> view the same site as "the rest" but on some sites I just can't see
> anything or the colours make me physically sick.
> 
One class of sites that springs to mind is the Flash based site such as
those that can be discovered in the music industry.  I assume these will 
provide a text-based alternative for blind fans.

As for colour blindness I do know someone who cannot tell whether a
bottle is green, clear or brown and therefore recycles by abitrarily
choosing the colour.  His colour blindness is hereditary, his nephew has
it also but yet is an artist of sorts with an interesting and vibrant
use of colour.  

> The trick - as ever - is to serve all parties as best you can. It's
> not easy but that's why it's called a trick. :o)
I'm reminded of the maxim you can please some of the people some of the
time but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Regards

L.
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