At TM-Town we spend a lot of time on design and user experience. Just in the past few months we have launched beautiful new profiles, a redesigned homepage, and a brand new directory search.
While we take great pride in the design and layout of TM-Town, we are also cognizant of the fact that design and page weight are often, but not always, in conflict with one another. As we have translators signing up from all over the world we are also aware that what looks great and loads fast in one country might load sluggishly in a country where the Internet connection speeds are much slower.
With this in mind, we have released TM-Town lite, a version of the TM-Town web application without images or JavaScript. This version is not for the faint of heart and most definitely will not be winning any design awards. However, for those using screen readers, or those in countries with slow Internet speeds, TM-Town lite provides a fast alternative to the main TM-Town page while still maintaining the majority of the functionality of the regular site.
TM-Town lite can be accessed by clicking the 'Lite' link in the footer. This link will keep you on the current page you are on (for example, this blog post that you are reading), it will just serve the lite version of it. Subsequently, you can return to the normal TM-Town site by clicking the 'Leave Lite' link in the footer of the lite page.
While TM-Town lite is certainly not for everyone, in our quest to serve translators from all over the world we hope it makes TM-Town easier to access for those who use screen readers or for those in parts of the world with slower Internet connections.
Kevin Dias
TM-Town Developer
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