GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 520029
Better handle our presentation of images and text on a web page when the image spans multiple lines
Last modified: 2008-04-07 22:31:32 UTC
We currently try very hard to present the current line of a web page as it appears visually. This can be problematic given an image which spans multiple lines of text content. Two examples: 1. On the GNOME BUGZILLA page we have (in this order): a. Home link image b. Bugzilla c. A line of links beginning with New bug In this instance, the top of the Home link image is on the same line as Bugzilla. The Home link image (being rather tall) is also on the same line as the link of links beginning with New bug. How many lines should we present to the user? 2. On http://www.fr-online.de/rss/nachrichten/index.xml: a. FR - Politik (heading 1) b. An image (FrankfurterRundschau FR-online.de) c. FR - Politik (heading 2) In this example, the heading 1 is on the same line as the top of image. The image (again, being rather tall) is also on the same line has the heading 2. Again, how many lines should we present to the user?
I cheked out the FR site, using Jaws with FF2, and I saw that the FR-logo is presented before the headings. Despite the fact that the Orca team won't use virtualisation, I suggest to think about at least partially reformatting the webpages, so that images generally are presented in new lines. I don't know whether this is possible via scripting, or if it would be necessary to rebuild FF's accessibility mechanisms, but I think this would be the best solution.
I know that we are trying hard to inform the user of what is being displayed on the screen, but especially with images, we are not really gaining any information by announcing its presence multiple times. (maybe someone who is designing a webpage would be intrested, but thats probably a minority of the users), and even then its a bit futile, because window size/resolution would change the layout, so esentially they shouldnt care either. More importantly for the other users, it is delaying the user from arriving at content that is more useful to them, and increasing chattyness. I would vote for keeping the existing presentation. If it really had to change, then: immediately after announcing the image, we say that this is spanning x lines. I eally dont think that it should be presented on more than one line. Sorry
The problem with that multiline images is a practical one: In case of the FR news feed, it prevents Orca from showing the overview of the stories. That's how I've understood Joanie, and she provided a patch solving this. However: We cannot create patches and patches to solve any problems that could emerge in the future. So we have to find a usable solution for the majority of cases. And the answer cannot be: "Leave it as it is!" What advantage do I have when I hear "This image does span X lines". This image prevents me from properly navigating the page, and I want a solution for that. I vote for a pragmatical approach, and if we can solve this problem by partially reformatting the page, OK, do it, even if it looks, feels and smells like Windows. If there's another way, OK, but which one? Sorry, but my view is a radical users one: Usability, and again usability, that's what I want!
I think maybe I havent quite understood the issue. I think my previous comment still applies to the first example Joanie gave. I have looked at the fr-online page, and i dont quite see why there is a navigational problem. Agreed, the heading and the image is being displayed together, but if you were looking for the story headlines, you can simply press 3, to jump between the level 3 headings. At the moment, this is what i hear: "subscribe now button" "go to fr-politik link image, fr-politik heading level 1, fr-politik heading level 2" "spd: Wowereit stellt sich hinter Beck link heading level 3" "03/09/2008 10:32 AM heading level 3" followed by text, which i assume is article or article description. Do you want it to appear as this? : "subscribe now button" "go to fr-politik link image heading level 1" "fr-politik heading level 1, fr-politik heading level 2" "spd: Wowereit stellt sich hinter Beck link heading level 3" "03/09/2008 10:32 AM heading level 3" yes, the image seems to be part of the heading. If i havent understood the problem then please enlighten me
The text of the article is displayed, because Joanie wrote a patch; I assume you use the latest Orca. In older versions this problem didn't exist. Before the patch, the overview of the article was empty, because that large image covered it up. Why this happens at all, I don't know; perhaps Joanie should explain it. Your question how the image and the heading should be displayed: Neither nor. Why two headins in one line? Is this the page looks like? I guess one heading should appear in one line, and I think this is a proper web design. The image should appear in one line too.
Created attachment 108429 [details] [review] this might work.... This patch should: 1. Get the heading 1 and heading 2 back on separate lines for Hermann's site (still leaves the image on the same line as the first heading). 2. Not break the fix for the images on the same line as Hermann's news articles. 3. Put the "home link image bugzilla" on its own line (where it used to be) 4. Solve Mike's BofA problem (reported to me personally due to confidentiality/privacy). Pylinted already, but I need to run the regression tests still. In the meantime, this could use some testing love from you guys. :-) Thanks much!!
So far this seems to have nicely fixed the problem I was having. I also have had no trouble on other sites related to this patch.
Thanks Mike. Patch committed to both trunk and the gnome 2-22 branch. Moving to pending.