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Problems
The project in whole showed the difficulties in preparing a good regional portal. Especially the discussion with decision makers, citizens and IT administrators were quiet useful to identify the core element of a usable internet portal. The integration of the platform developed in the i-coin project was a problem in our county.
First of all the difference between the developer´s countries and Germany is to big especially in legal issues, we don´t know if we´re allowed to use it. After a workgroup session, the local task group discussed the usability influences and the possibility of connecting the transnational database developed in this project. Because of the complex content converting it was not possible to link all services to a new internet portal. By preparing the usability and accessibility guide the missing general definition of website accessibility was identified as one problem. The second problem was that there were no cross-country or uniform EU rules on accessibility. The implementation of website accessibility is a matter of the country which results in a multiplicity of different rules, guidelines and laws. Because the guide should be a general one, the described rules and guidelines are general and more a kind of accessibility basement. The German version of the guide differs from the English version. In the German version specific elements of the German regulations (BITV) are described. However in the English version many of them cannot to be found. Instead in the English version a directive of accessible web design from the United States is described. The problems peak was to design a website accessible checklist. The checklist should enable Web administrators to review their own website by criteria of accessibility. This result in a checklist which is only based on common and general accessibility rules. A problem that can easily be overseen when you think about website accessibility is the language. The language should be universally comprehensible, even for people without higher education. Foreign words or abbreviations in the text should be marked with an appropriate statement. Nested sentences and complicated language should be avoided. 
Example how to explain an abbreviation
It was a problem to find a solution for the different browser bugs. The various browsers display websites in a different way, partly based on errors. Accessibility and usability should also include solutions for these problems, so that all users have the same website and all contents are well displayed. The integration of the CSS Framework YAML solved the problem. Several errors have been repaired by this. YAML allowed big-time savings.  |
Publisher Christian Bonfré Updated: 2008-04-10 |