accessibility toolbar not working issue

Hi guys - I am very new to web design and have basically learnt HTML and CSS within the last two weeks via youtube videos and trial and error.

I have already built a website for my mates band which has worked out quite well unfortunately my boss has got me rebuilding our awful company website. I have hosted what I have done so far on my own domain www.mordentech.co.uk.

However, before I go any further I want to be able to add an accessibility tool-bar just like the old website www.reachdata.co.uk or better preferably. We supply IT equipment to DSA funded students for the government so it is an audit requirement.

I have tried various javascript and jquery codes from the web and even tried the one from the previous website with the addition css scripts but none seem to be working. I have already used jquery twice on my website; which work fine, but I may be missing something.

Any help or direction would be most helpful - thank you.

Andy

 

That is quite impressive actually, if true. But knowing how and what they teach you in those 3-day courses, sadly, you probably didn't learn enough just yet. Still though, that's quite an accomplishment.

Now, about your website. What you'd have to know at this point is -- no matter who you're making your website for, you should never neglect accessibility standards (e.g. WCAG). Since you want to deliver content equally to all targeted groups, you have to anticipate the possible disabilities and make your website useful to everyone.
With that said, if you have a properly built website, you don't need an accessibility toolbar, in most cases.

And one more thing: lose the jQuery! You've probably heard all kinds of praises about that rubbish library, however it won't bring your website anything of value. This is even more important now since you're building your website for disabled students, as it can make the website unusable for them.
Target="_blank" should really be avoided as well.

I'll probably do a quick rewrite of your website in its current state, that way you'll actually learn something. Unless of course I get beat to it by someone else on the forums .

 

I'm aware of the WCAG standard unfortunately the Government Audit 'tick sheet process' doesn't care how perfect the site has been built only the fact that there is an accessibility tool-bar present which is why I asked for advice on it.

 

What RETARDED government would this be? No, seriously, I've NEVER heard of any government requiring that and if they do, they are such ignorant halfwits they have ZERO business sticking their nose into how websites are built. You can tell them that for me!

Those goofy SCRIPTTARD toolbars are the OPPOSITE of accessibility in design; much less the old site is such a broken mess cross browser to call it accessible is to not even understand what web accessibility IS. ANY government that would give that a thumbs up? Well, I can tell them where to stick that thumb.

Fixed width layout, fixed metric (pixel) fonts, zero graceful degradation with little if anything resembling semantic markup -- on EITHER site; they are so woefully inaccessible and such laundry lists of how NOT to build a website that said sites should NEVER pass ANY accessibility standard... and that's before we talk the HTML 5 shiv for nothing since you aren't actually using any HTML 5 tags, HTML 4 charset META in a 5 doctype, that X-UA garbage no website should EVER need unless it's code is utter and complete 1990's style rubbish, pointless classes for nothing, invalid/non-existen robot meta values, inaccessible goofy webfont crap, title attributes calling into question the code inside the tags it's on, paragraphs around non-paragraph text, scripttardery for NOTHING doing CSS' job on the menus, presentational images in the markup, attributes like TARGET that have no business on any website written after 1997 (and was specification abuse before that), much less the GIBBERISH use of numbered headings in complete ignorance of what they MEAN... Seriously, is "Print View" really a subsection of "Reach Data Technologies Ltd"? What's with the H2 and H3 preeeding the H1? "Contact Us" is a subsection of "Areas that we are particularly proud of"?!? "©Copyright 2015 Reach Data Technologies All Rights Reserved" is the start of a subsection of "Bottom Heading"?!? I don't think so...

Of course I see the telltales of the nonsense scam artist BS known as Dreamweaver and it's idiotic "template" system, so that explains a LOT. Net result is probably anywhere around two-fifths of your markup belonging in the trash.

Would you care to link to said "tick sheet" and just what dipshit mouth-breathing dumbasses came up with said "requirements"? It sure as shine-ola isn't any UK accessibility laws I'm aware of... which given the .uk TLD? :/

... and even if you were to add that scripttardery, you would have to have ALL your fonts declared in %/em and your widths and paddings should be EM based where possible so the script can change it on body and the whole page inherits from that. It's why if you've declared font-size in pixels, you screwed up and don't know the first blasted thing about accessibility!

Really what you have so far as EITHER site goes is a utter and complete lack of understanding what HTML is, what it is for, or how it and CSS applies to accessibility -- scary given some of the claims made by the placeholder text for said site. You have NOTHING to make the page accessible in the first place, so throwing some ignorant halfwit "toolbar" scripttardery at it is NOT the answer, even if it's required by whatever spec you are working to. If anything I'd suspect you are misreading whatever 'tick sheet' you are trying to follow.

 

Lol - good rant - most of the text is just that place-holder text and I am still learning so will probable rebuild it a couple of times whilst I am learning how to code better.

I learn better by doing and as I work full time and do other fun things I am doing the best I can I was just hoping for a helpful suggestion.

The last bit was a bit unnecessary; as I am just a beginner at coding, but the requirements are still the requirements whether it ires you or not.

 

Well, could we SEE said 'requirements'? I find your claim of what it's telling you to do HIGHLY unlikely, hence my suspecting you are misreading it or misunderstanding it -- entirely possible if you are a beginner.

 

Our current site has it - all the other suppliers have it and it IS in the government framework for the field we are in. I actually don't care whether you suspect I am misreading it or misunderstanding it as a requirement or not; my initial post was asking for help on creating an accessibility tool-bar.

I cannot be bothered to defend my request - read into that as you will - I do not care one tiny bit - so I am just going to delete my account and find somewhere less hostile towards helping people learn.

Good bye people it wasn't fun.

 

While some of the rants from @deathshadow might be a bit unpleasant, they're rarely wrong. The fact, as he said, is that an "accessibility toolbar" is crap, and should never, ever be needed, if the site is built properly. Changing the size of fonts? If users need to do this, they should do it in their browser environment, not on the page itself. Colour contrast? Same thing - fix it in the browser environment, or in the OS itself (most modern OSes have "high-contrast" or other settings that allow for the same). As for the different languages, that might be something you want to include, but it's hardly part of any accessibility toolbar I've ever heard of - it's just a small form with a select or radio-buttons (which can be set as flags, if you want) to switch between different content / languages.