Museo&Web
Planning Kit for a Quality Site for Small and Medium Sized Museums
Incompatible browser
Thanks to ever more powerful computers and the availability of broader bands, internet is becoming richer in content and has evolved from a simple container for mainly text information, to a multimedia store of images, films, sounds and animations. On opening any web page, it is not unusual to find multimedia objects such as flash animations, which require special plug-ins for correct viewing.
These added characteristics are not always available for the particular browser we are using. In particular, the flash object cannot be viewed until the browser is updated by downloading the special plug-in. This download is often effected automatically without allowing user intervention and even without the user being aware of the operation.
There must be special tools (even imperfect ones) for use by disadvantaged users.
3D objects and animations must be accompanied by a declaration that describes the difficulty of accessibility.
One solution is to ensure that in the absence of the necessary plug-in, a statement describes the need for the plug-in for correct viewing of the object. This statement can be simple text or an image with alternative explanatory text. In both cases accessibility is guaranteed for users of screen readers.