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大象传媒 Jobs needs work
- 20 Nov 06, 01:09 PM
After hearing of recent concerns, we asked you to feedback on any problems you've had with the 大象传媒's newly launched Jobs site - see this blog entry
The site has recently been relaunched by the 大象传媒 working with its new HR partners to create a more appropriate site that both parties can work with.
Jane Dennis, the 大象传媒's lead on resourcing, told us: "The technology platform is the same as that used by a number of other organisations and is being used every day by millions of candidates, applying for tens of thousands of jobs. For advertised 大象传媒 positions with close dates between 1st August and 31st October, they received 31,107 applications, of which 744 were from applicants that declared a disability ... of those 744 applications, all but 14 were completed online 鈥 that鈥檚 98.1% completed electronically."
So, despite some concerns over the accessibility, the site is in working order and accessible enough to receive a vast quantity of applications - including a significant number from disabled people.
So what exactly are the issues and are they a significant barrier to disabled people applying? We spoke to the to see what they made of the 大象传媒 Jobs website. Henny Swan, Senior Web Accessibility Consultant, said that she found, 鈥渟everal issues in the website that are quite surprising and not up to the standard of the 大象传媒.鈥 Some of these issues included incorrect or missing heading structures on pages, information only provided in PDF format with no accessible alternatives or links to download the appropriate reader, complex charts with no alternative text description and no warnings when new windows open.
Henny also stressed that the web is the one medium that can be guaranteed to be accessible to all. On how to solve the usability issues, she said: "These are all simple issues to fix but unfortunately have a high impact on access to information and ultimately the chances of an individual being able to easily apply for a job online.鈥
Looking at the site ourselves, to be exact about this, we would say that it has some usability issues that might make it more time-consuming for some users but it's not inaccessible as such. This is why feedback from users is always important.
There is certainly no wish to exclude disabled people from the 大象传媒 work force so these recent criticisms seem unfortunate. Mark Thomson, Director General of the 大象传媒, recently told the (BCIDN) that it was important for 大象传媒 staff to reflect the nation they serve in terms of diversity. Unless of course Mark was lying through his teeth and ordered the website coders to screen out disabled people? Um, we don't think so.
The current layout, unlike previous versions of the site, enables all entries to look exactly the same once completed and on the desks at the HR dept. This means that any issues users may have with formatting an application form - a visual layout issue - is edited out of the process. This means that if you can't see, for instance, any worries you may have about a visual layout in a freeflow blank form can be forgotten about; your application form will look exactly the same as everyone else's with no reason to discriminate.
Jane is aware that the system is not perfect and added that, 鈥淲e try to ensure that every stage of our recruitment process is accessible to all ... We are establishing a working party to discuss these issues, with our first meeting scheduled to take place in early December.鈥
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I think "missing heading structures" are just the tip of the iceberg with regards the accesibility issues of the site:
And so on.
Moral: Development work shouldn't be outsourced without reference (and maybe even contractual adherance) to the 大象传媒's standards and guidelines. That's the lesson I think we need to learn here.
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Mat sums up the problems well, but I also spotted...
The usual standards applied to 大象传媒 sites, don't appear to have be looked at by the developer of this.
Whilst I understand that this website is obviously part of a much larger system, there really is no excuse for a live 大象传媒 website being quite this laughably poor.
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The 大象传媒 outsourced something... and to a company like Capita (responsible for many Council backlogs and poor performance on things like benefit claims) and people are "surprised" the outcome isn't up to the usual 大象传媒 standard!?!
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I'm a developer. I've looked at the Jobs site and can't really see what all the fuss is about regarding accessibility. can someone explain what's going on round here? It's not inaccessible as the article says. there's a bit of a logic curve with the user experience from start to end possibly but this discussion rather looks like a bit of internal politics. Which particular guidelines has the Jobs site transgressed then? I can use it. Can't you?
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Which particular guidelines has the Jobs site transgressed then?
For a start...
4.1.4. Pages MUST be readable with style-sheets turned off
5.1. Ensure that the site uses validated HTML
/guidelines/newmedia/accessibility/
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I'd like to challenge the 大象传媒's assertion that most disabled applicant's(86%) applied on-line, so the site must be accessible. My contention is that they haven't considered how many persons with disabilities had to be assisted by a sighted person to apply on-line. Instead of defending their inferior site, they should be concentrating on revising it to conform to well-established standards.
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To Banks (4) >
I think it's possible (and please do explain further if not) you might be thinking of usability rather than accessibility: I can indeed use the site without issue, but then I have no disabilities. If a user had poor / no vision, motor dysfunction, dyslexia etc they would definitely have a harder time than is necessary with that site.
And to John (6) > excellent point, hadn't thought of that :-\
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As John hints at, the statistics on the number of people applying online with disabilities does in no way relate to the accessibility of the site. If it's so unusable for people with a given disability that they are unable to apply using it at all, that does not logically lead to them applying using another method. So whilst a large percentage of people who noted they had a disability were able to use it we still have no information on how many people were not able to use it which is in fact the key figure.
Seeing as it's not the best site, as pointed about in the above comments (from the look of it there has only been one browser used in testing, which in this day and age is a disgrace), it would seem to me prudent to fix it rather than spend time finding ways to convince ourselves that it is ok really. What's done is done, but it can be better, defending bad work for the sake of it is not something the 大象传媒 should be doing and there is some excellent work and resources within the 大象传媒 that should be put to good use to fix this problem.
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One usability problem is the use of numeric access keys. If you want to use a non-standard character such as an em dash (Alt + 0151) or a non-English alphabetical character such as 茅 (Alt + 0233), as soon as you type Alt + 0 you will get taken off (ironically) to the accessibility page. On returning to the form any unsaved data will have been lost. A real hassle for a sighted user but very much more so for a non-sighted user.
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