Getting the Word Out On Web Standards and Accessibility
Posted By ptvGuy On 20th October 2006 @ 02:37 In All, accessibility, browser, coding, compatibility, content, disabilities, markup, responsibility, usability, scripts, Frontpage, web standards, DOCTYPE, Accessibility Series | 6 Comments
…otherwise intelligent business people are entrusting their entire web presence to such as these…
Let's face it, we live in a world where any high school kid with a semester course in "web design" (if even that much training) and a copy of Frontpage can hang out a virtual shingle calling himself (or herself) a "webmaster." Factor WordPress into that with its five-minute install and innumerable themes and you have a job title glutted with people who don't know the first thing about what they're doing. An amazingly large number of otherwise intelligent business people are entrusting their entire web presence to such as these. The general public's lack of knowledge in this area only serves to exacerbate the problem.
Without any foreseeable way to prevent this practice from continuing and growing exponentially, those of us who care are left with the onus of attempting to educate these fledgling webmasters about the need for good coding practices, accessibility, and web standards. I know, many of you have been doing that for years already, but this is an ongoing problem requiring constant reminders.
To help out in this endeavor (and to provide professional web developers with yet one more way to stand out from the crowd,) I've created a document called the "[4] Declaration of Standards Compliance." The style and wording may sound a little familiar to you.
When in the course of online events, it becomes necessary for web developers to ensure access to the content over which they have so meticulously labored and to assume among the powers and tools available to them, the basic responsibility to ensure proper markup and accessibility, a decent respect for their site’s users regardless of their browser, platform, or possible disabilities requires that they should declare their document type for proper page rendering and their assent to basic web standards.
–ptvGuy, [4] Declaration of Standards Compliance
…need for web standards and accessibility cannot be understated…
Now, before anyone gets in an uproar and thinks that I am perhaps mocking the document upon which this is based–The Declaration of Independence–I'm not. I don't know of a clearer way to outline an ongoing problem and then express the need for action and the conviction to carry it out. As a pure study in writing, it's one of the greatest essays ever written. I humbly borrow from the masters.
The need for web standards and accessibility cannot be understated. If you're putting content out there for the world to see, use, and interact with, then there is a certain underlying responsibility to do it correctly. That requires some extra work and study. Fortunately, the web is full of people willing to share that knowledge. I've put together a list of such resources on my [6] Anal Coding page to serve as a beginning point. The very abundance of this information made freely available to everyone everywhere is what makes the practice of bad coding so pointedly shameful.
…standards are themselves evolving and subject to change…
One important thing to remember, however, is that the web is not a static technology. It is constantly growing, expanding, and evolving. New people, ideas, and technologies will come along and suddenly change everything we've taken for granted. (That may even include the aforementioned high school student.) The standards, therefore, that guide us in the creation of accessible and well-coded pages are themselves evolving and subject to change.
I encourage you to read [7] the document itself, [8] comment on it, and, if you agree with it, go to the [9] declaration page and find out how to become a [10] signatory of this important [11] declaration and thereby further get the word out on the need for web standards and accessibility.
Thank you all, code well, and good night.
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6 Comments To "Getting the Word Out On Web Standards and Accessibility"
#1 Comment By Ted Windslow On 25th October 2006 @ 05:26
I could not agree more. Too often I see crappy code spat out even when author’s are using web standards. The web truely has become a place where the majority of people only care about the cover, not what it inside.
#2 Comment By ScottB On 25th October 2006 @ 05:28
I really identify what you said: “…the web is not a static technology. It is constantly growing, expanding, and evolving.”
I run into graphic designers in my daily work, trying to spit out “web design” not considering that the web is really a dynamic medium. Too often people look at web sites as online brochures, well this is not the case.
Ted - I agree with what you say, but you have to admit that even though content is king, the web is a VERY visual medium.
#3 Comment By Joseph A Nagy Jrj On 27th October 2006 @ 10:48
Too true, ptvguy, too true.
If the problem then begins with WYSIWYG editors, it should end with them. The only editor I use more often then some random text editor (preferably with syntax highlighting like vim) is CoffeeCup’s HTML Editor which provides a very powerful hands-on approach to coding websites and doing it right (with links to validators and the W3C’s main website).
Trash such as FrontPage shouldn’t be seen as the pinnacle of WYSIWYG, indeed FP is more along the lines of the trough of the wave, full of the sediment tossed aside by the crest.
#4 Pingback By links for 2006-10-28 — Chip’s Quips On 27th October 2006 @ 19:19
[…] Ameliorations Joseph “reads the rights” to malformed political web sites. (tags: linklove webdesign libertarianism) […]
#5 Comment By ptvGuy On 30th October 2006 @ 02:17
You’ll be happy to know that FrontPage is gone–yet another casualty in Microsoft’s commitment to be standards compliant. While I applaud their continuing move toward compliance, I have to wonder about their massive customer base out there who have no coding experience whatsoever. As support for FrontPage is discontinued, all those people are left with websites that will steadily begin falling apart. I’m beginning to picture it in my mind as the crumbling ruins of the first web boom.
BTW, even as an anal coder I will use a WYSIWYG editor to deal with the daunting task of putting together a complicated table or page. It allows me to quickly throw up the underlying structure. It’s the final coding that I won’t leave in the hands of such an editor. I go back through the markup line by line and clean it up and give it the final detailing.
You have not had fun until you’ve tried to properly code a few large spreadsheets of data and make the whole thing accessible.
#6 Comment By Joseph A Nagy Jr On 3rd November 2006 @ 15:18
I’ve done similar, if smaller in scope, tasks. It isn’t any fun at all.
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[5] Declaration of Standards Compliance: http://www.ptvguy.com/declaration/declaration-of-standards-compliance/
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