Rockbridge County Public Schools
- Date Accessed: August 9, 2003
- URL: http://www.rcs.rang.k12.va.us/
- Content: Content is available on the homepage through a form-enabled marquee.
Web Standards
- HTML 4 or XHTML validation: DOCTYPE! was not included, invalid HTML
- Text-Browsing: Use of ALT tags allows users to follow links in a text browser; the content marquee, because it's Javascript-enabled, does not show. Therefore, no real content is available in the text-browser.
- Proprietary Code: none
- Editor Used: n/a
- Number of lines of code:157
The page is missing a closing HTML tag and makes use of FONT tags.
Usability Concerns
Identification on the page is problematic. While the TITLE of the page is clear, many users look for identification on the page itself. No clear title or use of heading tags is in use. The county seal is missed visually among the collection of icons. The text within the seal is difficult to read.
The links under pictures are repeated at the bottom, however they do not match exactly. There is no reason to repeat the links; on a larger site this can be done, but the order and number of links should be mirrored.
The use of a Javascript marquee is unnecessary, and in my case, the marquee scrolling stopped after some time. This is the only type of content on the page and could be replaced with news items.
Accessibility Concerns
The text-browser test revealed the links fine; the identification of the site through the ALT attribute attached to the county seal identified the site, but was confusingly inserted into the center of the links.
The only content provided, through the Javascript marquee, is not seen by text-only browsers. Visually impaired persons might have trouble reading the scrolling text, and the animated GIF file for the "Reading" link may be a sensitive issue for those persons with photosensitivity.
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Copyright © 2003 by John G. Hendron. All Rights Reserved.