Navy website

[Wechter, Ron]

Nflugians,

I also agree on the website design theory by CCB.  Agreed that a webpage
should NOT force you to use a certain technology.  As the Navy is concerned
they hired a company (unkown) to design the site for them.  Once the did
this there were complaints as to the "Accessibility" of the site.  For
example for students in school that cannot load the page because of the lack
of flash (an may not have priviledges to install plug-ins) they would not
get the recruiting information that the visited the site for.  Headquarters
has seen this as a problem but from an investment point of view they need to
utilize the site that they paid for. 

Look forward to future versions of the site for greater accessibilty and
they are already working on the next version of the site.  The main reason
for the site change (using flash) was for the presence of technology - How
can the Navy sell themselves as a "Highly Technical Postition" when their
website does not reflect that.  Thats why they used this BOLD Flash method.

....OK ok ok -- Ill get off the Navy soapbox - GO NAVY!

Ronald K. Wechter
NRD Buffalo Assistant Systems Administrator
NRD Buffalo Webmaster
Navy Recruiting Department Buffalo
(716) 551-4901 



-----Original Message-----
From: ccb at acm.org [mailto:ccb at acm.org]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 11:04 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: Re: 



> I tried setting up Shockwave on ny Linux 7.1 Redhat for Netscape.All the
> plug-ins are there. When I go to play a game on Shockwave .com it still
says
> I need Macromedia player . I have it! but it will not reconize  it! What
> should I do?

Flame the webmaster to a crispy cinder (just kidding!!!) ;-).  This
may be a misfeature on the part of the site designer.  Can you see
Flash animations at the macromedia site?  If so, there's nothing you
can do but send a polite note to the webmaster.

Among my favorite sites that get this wrong - the US Navy.

Properly done sites offer you an alt way of handling the site AND the
ability to forge ahead with Flash if you think you know better.


ccb