239952 - Metro Public Health Department's menu won't work

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[kaldari]

Pop-up menu uses sloppy IE Javascript. Won't work in Mozilla or Safari. Sent an
email to the webmaster a while back but never recieved a reply.

Comment 1

[kaldari]

Finally received a reply:

Sorry for not replying, we are very busy.  

From your memo, you sound like a very browser savy person.  And you probably
already know that you can download Internet Explorer for free.  At this
time, we are able to reach 90%+ of the public with the Internet Explorer
browser and we have much more pressing issues such as, "How do we reach the
Spanish speaking community?"  Thanks for the offer of free programming;
however, since we are in the middle of an upgrade project I must decline
this offer.

Thanks,
Steve Weatherford
Webmaster - Public Health Department

Comment 2

[Cody 'codeman38' Boisclair]

I wonder if they could be seen as having violated their statement of
non-discrimination with such an ugly Javascript hack... I mean, the least they
could do is offer a plain, non-Javascript-based navigation page!

Comment 3

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

That kind of attitude really gets me. Their entire left navigation bar is
inaccessible in lynx. I suppose since the disabled are less than 10% of their
population, they can ignore them too.

http://healthweb.nashville.org/statement_of_non_discrimination.asp states they
do not discriminate against people with disabilities

http://healthweb.nashville.org/Web%20Docs/adm_ada_notice.html lists ADA
accomodations

http://www.ittatc.org/laws/state_prototype.cfm?state=Tennessee guidelines for
TN. Although I can't access it at the moment.

You might want to call the Metro Public Health Department of Nashville/Davidson
County:

John Dunn
311 23rd Avenue North
Nashville, TN  37203-1511
Phone:  [phone]
FAX:  [phone]

Then of course there is the state government,
http://www.tennesseeanytime.org/tnanytime/accessibility.html

Perhaps if they outsourced their web development they might be able to
accomplish a reasonable web design.

Comment 4

[kaldari]

I sent the following email to the webmasters and John Dunn today:

I find it ironic that the Metro Health Department has one of the only websites run by Metro that doesn't 
meet basic handicapped accessibility guidelines. Due to your use of non-standard Javascript, the 
navigation links on your site don't even register as links in a screen reader, and since no alternative 
navigation is provided, 90% of the content of your site is completely inaccessible to the visually 
impaired (or anyone not using Internet Explorer). If you are not willing to fix the Javascript which 
generates your site's menubar, I urge you to at least provide some type of alternative navigation such 
as a site map or text menubar at the bottom of the page.

If you would like to see how your site will render to a screen reader, here's an example:
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhealthweb.nashville.org
Not very usable is it?

Thanks again for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
Ryan Kaldari

Comment 5

[kaldari]

Sent a follow-up email today to [e-mail], [e-mail], and [e-mail]. Also cced the mayor's office.

Comment 6

[kaldari]

Recieved the following reply from the webmaster:

Have you tried downloading the "IE Tab" plug-in from Firefox?  It
corrects the inability of Firefox to use menu systems like the one on
the Health Dept website.

Comment 7

[kaldari]

They finally replaced their website with a new, standards-compliant site. Yay!