5. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 48 

5.1 O

VERVIEW

................................................................................................................ 48 

5.2 F

UTURE WORK

.......................................................................................................... 48 

6. REFERENCES............................................................................................................ 49 

6.1 Web references ..................................................................................................... 49 

6.2 Print references .................................................................................................... 49 

1. I

NTRODUCTION

Irish Internet users generated over 8.1 million searches on the Golden Pages Online site 

in  2002,  an  increase  of  16%  on  2001  (http://www.goldenpages.ie/extra/products.html). 

The site went live in 1998 and has steadily grown in popularity since then, as more and 

more Irish homes and businesses have connected to the Internet. The site offers a number 

of  advantages  over  the  print  editions,  first  and  foremost  that  all  six  print  editions  are 

combined together online. Users can search for products and services anywhere in Ireland 

but  within  very  targetted  areas,  be  they  bike  shops  in  Ringsend,  farming  equipment  in 

Salthill or office supplies in Athlone.  

The current incarnation of the online service still has a number of problems, however. It 

is  not  accessible  to  visually  impaired  users  with  screen readers  without  some  difficulty 

because of its layout. In one sense it has less functionality than the print edition, in that it 

lacks the picture ads that make up so much of the company`s revenue in the book. The 

main  search  page  also  has  some  very  slow rendering  graphics,  which  dramatically 

increase loading time. 

1.1 Objectives 

This project has two objectives: the first is to redesign the Golden Pages site to improve 

its  accessibility.  There  are  also  a  number  of basic search enhancements I would like to 

add. 

The second objective is to expand the service to provide richer information to its users by 

allowing them to view not only details about the advertisers, but also to browse, compare 

and contrast their products and services. 

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