I found the header a little offensive this afternoon. There was a great big map of the USA and something about DKA. What has happened to the rest of us who happen not to live in America?
I wasn’t going to complain about the efforts to update the website, but this is too much.
Not to downplay your comment in any way, but you can skip the main web site entirely if you wish and come directly to the forums by changing your bookmark or saved shortcut to:
https://forum.tudiabetes.org/
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I agree and think the purpose of the main frontpage headline on a newspaper in all Caps is very specifically SHOUTING the title at you as you pass. This is not by chance or an accident. It is quite intentional and very specific.
Years back, you would have had a newspaper boy on the street corner “literally” (lol) shouting that same headline as you walk past.
Choosing to put certain messages IN ALL CAPS is very effective in particular circumstances WHEN YOU WANT TO YELL but like anything, it can always be overdone and taken too far.
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The states in yellow represent the states the DKA has been launched. BT1 is working on about 15more states now. The goal is for the map to be 100% yellow, of course, but if the local AAP chapter does not want to participate there is nothing BT1 can do. This is a partnership with the American Academy of Pediatricians.
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@Mila, yes I understand that. However, TuD is an international site and that map does not represent a good percentage of your members.
I don’t feel so grumpy now, we had a good lunch in a winery, but really it does feel as if other countries are not included.
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The campaign was launched in New Zeland and soon in Mexico. In the meantime the dka posters and information is available in over 10 languages.
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For what it’s worth, that map is the first of three rotating banners (aka sliders) that automatically change after a set amount of time. However, yours may not move on to the next banner if you have disabled Java or other browser functionality settings.
I’ve just seen it now, I’m here for the first time in a bit. The size seems ok if you’re in the forums but I find the whole menu and logo are too big on the first page, on my iPad anyway. I also don’t like the black and white, it’s too harsh. It needs some color. It doesn’t fit in well imo. Sorry 
it is a bit easier to read maybe though. But it all feels too jarring to me, maybe I’ll adjust to it. Not sure I like the black yellow dominance.
Overall, the navigation seems better/ easier to me so far.
I also wonder if I click on the banner, to see informamtion, is there a broken link? It doesn’t seems to work.
This was confusing to me as well—usually those are links to more information.
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Links were missing; now it should take you to read the posts on the slider.
Although capitalized thread titles are generally distracting and less readable, it’s somewhat less of an issue when they are truly being used as titles (ie., at the top to the thread). Where it’s more annoying is in the list of threads (eg., unread threads, etc.) where the list is no longer a “title”, but just the thread subject.
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I am a member of a group with Macular Degeneration. A number of people on that site use all caps (and are allowed/encouraged to), so that others with poor eyesight can read it. So, not always is it considered shouting. It helps us to read it.
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Thanks for raising this issue. I’m not against something that would help anyone mitigate a disability. I’m wondering, however, if a much larger font using mixed case letters instead of all caps might be a better choice to accomplish that.
Perhaps that larger font size is not available in your macular degeneration forum as it doesn’t seem to be in this one. I had not missed that option here before your comment. Do sight impaired people have ancillary utilities that enable text on a site like TuDiabetes to be magnified?
You raise a good point.
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Many organizations are legally required to comply with various laws regarding “Accessibility”.
Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act are two prime examples although not exclusive.
It is simply a good idea for ALL organizations to be compliant in terms of Accessibility.
There are many aspects to this. Any company/organization which is actually legally required to be compliant and which has technical staff that is unfamiliar with this would certainly be placing themselves in a precarious legal situation.
Any company which is not legally required to do so while having technical staff which is unfamiliar with this would be placing themselves in an potentially uncomfortable position.
IMHO this is not an unreasonable burden in this day and simply requires technical people familiar with what is required as well as management willing to ensure that the technical staff is held accountable.
My browser, Safari, allows me to magnify the text substantially. Here’s a screen shot of the largest text display available to me:
Does adding all caps to this browser magnification actually make it easier for sight impaired people to read on a forum like this?
I’d be interested to read @Jen’s take on this issue.
Low vision is such a heterogeneous condition that it’s impossible to make a blanket statement about what’s better overall in this regard (unlike other web standards, where there is clear research about best practices). A quick search of the literature shows that minimal research has been done on the topic of low vision and text case and that no consensus has been reached as to whether uppercase text is, in general, harder or easier for people with low vision to read.
However, my personal (subjective) opinion is that I find all-uppercase text harder to read. It removes cues such as letters protruding above and below midline (not sure of the technical terminology, but I’m referring to letters like p, b, g, t and so on) that allow me to use cognition and “blur interpretation” skills to identify words without having to identify each letter individually.
All-uppercase letters are larger, and this may help people in the early stages of low vision who are not using assistive technology, but for me that doesn’t matter. I use a combination of screen magnification (the built-in magnifier in Windows 10) and a screen reader (NVDA, Non-Visual Desktop Access) to access computer content. I don’t have enough vision to comfortably read even the largest text size in many browsers, and enlarging the text in the browser alone doesn’t help me access the rest of the operating system (menus, toolbars, dialog boxes, other applications).
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Just a few clicks of CTRL and “+” increases webpage size in my browsers on Windows. IIRC, on a Mac it’s COMMAND instead of CTRL.
I’m sorry but I can’t stand the BOLD ALL CAPS TITLES and the black-white-yellow color scheme. It’s very unpleasant to look at.
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Looks great to me, keep up the great work!
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You are right.
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