Review of Epernicus

Epernicus Reviewed 23 Dec 2009 · Average score 82%

Summary

Over all, the entire website is accessible and usable for readers. However, there are some features that should be improved for those wishing to add text to forms and register if using a screen reader. Keyboard accessibility is good. Contrast levels may cause problems for some readers and the video offered as a presentation of the site has no captions or audio descriptions but this is not part of the general social networking aspect of the site.

Detailed Results

#	Test	Outcome	Notes
1	Login, Signup and Other Forms Accessible	33%	Keyboard accessibility is good. Captcha login is not used, but labels to the registration forms are missing. These edit boxes can not be accessed by the text based browser WebbIE and the NVDA screen reader cannot describe the edit boxes.
2	Image ALT Attributes	67%	Alt tags are used for all the photographs of researchers and are linked to their names. However, some other tags could be more descriptive, such as those linked to graphs etc, although a summary is usually available in the text.
3	Link Target Definitions	67%	Most links are clear, however some of the journal articles are linked by very long titles which can take some time to work through with a screen reader.
4	Frame Titles and Layout	100%	No frames are used in this site which appears to have a series of templates for users to fill when adding data.
5	Removal of Stylesheet	100%	The pages are well organized even without the use of CSS.
6	Audio/Video Features	100%	Not applicable within the general website. However, there is a YouTube video about a presentation related to network - it is not captioned and there is no accompanying text but it does not affect usage of the site.
7	Video/animations - audio descriptions	100%	Not applicable within the general website. However, there is a YouTube video about a presentation related to network - it is not captioned and there is no accompanying text but it does not affect usage of the site.
8	Appropriate use of Tables	100%	Tables do not appear to be used for layout and the pages can be read in a linnear fashion.
9	Tab Orderings Correct and Logical	100%	Tab order is good, but there are times when it is not very easy to see the outline to show where the link is being highlighted. This does depend in the browser being used.
10	Page Functionality with Keyboard	67%	All the page are keyboard accessible with Mozilla Firefox (except for the YouTube video player), but some critical function cannot be accessed using the text browser WebbIE, such as the login forms. There are pop up windows that are keyboard accessible.
11	Accessibility of Text Editors	100%	The website is fully accessible using keyboard. No rich text editor used.
12	Appropriate Feedback with Forms	100%	No time restrictions, also feedback is clear and provides good instructions for all required actions.
13	Contrast and Colour Check	33%	Colour contrast levels are not acceptable when tested using the 'Color Contrast Analyzer' but it is not hard to read the majority of the text if you have no visual difficulties. Some pale grey text could be a stronger colour to help users.
14	Page Integrity when Zooming	100%	The website maintains the layout and usability of all critical areas perfectly when zoomed.
15	Text size, style, blinking elements and Readability	67%	The majority of text on the site is size ten, which is readable but much of the menu system at the bottom of the pages is a smaller font size. There is no flashing or blinking content.