Accessibility at the Odeon “2”
The whole accessibility craze which has swept the 'net has had, as far as I can see, one very good effect on Britain's cinema-going population.
One word: Odeon. Their website was utterly, utterly shambolic, enlisting various DHTML and JavaScript widgets to try to create a cool, slick interface. But it failed, miserably. Their old interface, which is still available today and is presented as the main version of the site, just doesn't work. It won't go anywhere in Firefox, and is purely a pain to use in Internet Explorer. But not to worry. Matthew Somerville started by creating an accessible version of their site himself. Odeon didn't like this at all, and despite Matthew's site being perfectly legitimate, they forced him to withdraw it. After lots of badgering, probably by many web designers who just couldn't stand the sight of the site (like me), Odeon have given in, in the form of a published a simple, text version of their cinema listings. Praise be! It's fast, easy to use and tells you exactly what you want to know. Precisely what Odeon should have aimed for to start with. But, I suppose, well done to them for actually thinking about how they represent themselves online, even if they were being shouted at to do so. Remember: no website is better than a bad website. The frustration that was caused by this site might have lost Odeon loads of custom over the past few years. It's intenet antimarketing. It's always best to play it safe when it comes to something like this; make the information as easy to find and use as possible, and if possible in a way where no one can possibly go wrong. odeon cinema website accessibility
Posted by Fin at 8/02/2005 09:05:00 am 2 Comments ~ Post a Comment
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