[CEUD-ICT] Accessible DVD released today by Office of Ombudsman on making a complaint under the Disability Act (2005)

[Barry McMullin]

On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Mark Magennis wrote:

> The code that spawns the video is:
[...]

> Anything wrong with that?

Yes: it's platform+browser specific and (more importantly) offers
no fallbacks. Not even a plain text (HTML) to say "sorry, we
goofed, but this video won't play on your platform", which would
at least save a user from sitting, twiddling their thumbs, still
hoping that something was maybe going to happen! (One of the key
motivations for the complexity of the OBJECT element when it was
first introduced was exactly that it would allow a browser to be
offered a choice of things to embed and could try to pick the one
that will work "best" according to the client side
configuration. If all else fails, absolutely every browser in the
known universe should manage to render a plain HTML text fallback,
ideally with links for help or feedback or alternative download
locations etc., so there should always be one such fallback there
as a last resort...)

Best - Barry.

--
Barry McMullin,
Director, The Rince Research Institute (www.rince.ie)
Dublin City University
   phone: +353-1-700-5432
   web: http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~mcmullin/