Web Standards
I have been reading and learning a lot about this issue recently, in part because I had to redesign a website as part of my college course last year, and the criteria was to make it “accessible” and to design it using “web standards”.
Accessible to whom? 
How? 
Why?
What are “web standards”?
These issues have been around on the web for a long time, certainly since the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 were issued in 1999, (they are currently in process of being revised). It is only comparatively recently however, that the wider web community has started to take notice. This is mostly due to new government regulations around the world, (Europe and the USA in particular), which require organizations and individuals to make their websites more user friendly to persons with disabilities, and/or those who may be using different devices to access the Internet. For example, you are probably reading this article now using Microsoft Internet Explorer, or if you are really savvy like me, 
Mozilla Firefox or perhaps even Opera. (I love Opera btw, such a capable browser 
-more on browsers on this page). But some people may be using Lynx (a text only browser), a screen reading device, (which could be a braille reader or speech browser), or possibly even a PDA or other hand held device. In order for these users to be able to have as meaningful a surfing experience as the one you or I would expect, web site developers must ensure that their pages can be “read” by all devices (as far as is humanly and practically possible).
So how do I go about doing this, you may well ask? Good question: Some aspects are easier to implement than others, but here are a few pointers to get you going:
- Use CSS (stylesheets) to separate your page structure from your content. The styling for the page (colours, fonts, position of elements and so on), is written in an external css file which the browser downloads once and then caches it, thus saving the user’s bandwidth, and resulting in faster loading pages. Screenreaders and other devices, (including search engine spiders by the way!) are not then forced to wade through a mass of font tags and nested tables to get to the actual page content.
- Ensure that your code markup, (the HTML that you use to write your pages), is well formed and validates. Clean, validated code is much easier for browsers and other devices to read, as well as giving you that nice warm feeling inside, that comes from the knowledge that you are doing the right thing
- Be aware of, and try to adhere to, web standards at all times. Yes, it does seem a bit daunting at first, when you come across the list of dos and donts, especially when you are struggling to validate your page at 2.00 am, because that useful code snippet you “borrowed” or indeed were freely given by one of the free scripting sites, was written a few years ago and doesnt adhere to any standards known to man, (because it never did) and you dont yet have the coding knowledge to fix it!
- Dont make life too hard for yourself when you are just starting out as a web developer. Use a transitional doctype rather than a strict one, as this allows you more freedom with your coding. See the W3C pages for more information on html, xhtml, doctypes and more.
- Learn the nuts and bolts of how to make your pages accessible to all. Frankly, I think this is the most difficult one to get absolutely right. Why? Because many of the bells and whistles that we like to add to our web sites to increase their attractiveness and/or functionality, can also render them effectively inaccessible to some of the other “user agents” used by disabled people, (browsers, screen readers etc, are referred to as user agents by the W3C and others, by the way). This is because [1] they cant “read” javascripts, [2] links, forms, menus etc need to be able to be tabbed through using a keyboard, [3] animated gifs which flash on and off are disorientating to the visually impaired, and so on. These issues can all be addressed, but it takes time to provide acceptable and suitable alternatives. I am attempting to ensure that the pages on JWG conform to the WAI Guidelines for Accessiblity, although there are some other areas of the site that are sadly, not so easy to update, I do admit.
For practical information on how to make an accessible website, have a look at this helpful, no-nonsense resource, and see below for more.
Some of the links in this article lead to our Links and Resources Directory where you can find a lot of information on a wide range of subjects. The
Accessibility category particularly, contains many useful links pertaining to the above topic.
Comments and questions are of course welcome, as usual.
