#32871
WCAG and the Myth of Accessibility
Kevin Leitch explains why he feels that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines have failed in their mission to ensure that web content is accessible to all.
Leitch, Kevin. Juicy Studio (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#32876
Despite the nature of the Web and the vast change in its role from a structural medium to a visual media, it is still important that Web content be designed with proper structure. With better support for Cascading Style Sheets in recent versions of Web browsers, developers can change the appearance of structural elements to meet their design and visual preferences.
WebAIM (2006). Articles>Web Design>Standards
#32886
A customizable quick reference to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 requirements (success criteria) and techniques.
W3C (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#32942
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), along with other groups and standards bodies, has established technologies for creating and interpreting web-based content. These technologies, which we call 'web standards', are carefully designed to deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users while ensuring the long-term viability of any document published on the Web. Designing and building with these standards simplifies and lowers the cost of production, while delivering sites that are accessible to more people and more types of Internet devices. Sites developed along these lines will continue to function correctly as traditional desktop browsers evolve, and as new Internet devices come to market.
#32943
Introduction to Device Independence, Part 1
In the past three to four years the number of different kinds of devices that can access the Web has increased significantly. And they have a wide variety of different capabilities: smart phones, mobile phones, voice response systems, PDAs, and even microwave ovens can access the Web. The mission of the Device Independence activity of the W3C is to avoid fragmentation of the Web into spaces that are accessible only from certain types of devices.
Mikhalenko, Peter. XML.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>Standards
#32944
The term web standards can mean different things to different people. For some, it is 'table-free sites', for others it is 'using valid code'. However, web standards are much broader than that. A site built to web standards should adhere to standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, DOM, MathML, SVG etc) and pursue best practices (valid code, accessible code, semantically correct code, user-friendly URLs etc). In other words, a site built to web standards should ideally be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly.
Weakley, Russ. Max Design (2004). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Semantic
#32945
I’d like to share some of the things I’ve done (and still do) to get the team I work with to start using web standards. Maybe it will help someone who is in the position I was a while back.
456 Berea Street (2004). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Collaboration
#32946
This document attempts to explain how and why using web standards will let you build websites in a way that saves time and money for developers and provides a better experience for visitors. Also discussed are other methods, guidelines and best practices that will help produce high-quality websites that are accessible and usable to as many people and browsing devices as possible.
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards
#32947
The Beauty and Business of CSS
Building designs with CSS is no longer a fringe activity practiced by standards geeks and early-adopters. Creative pioneers and highly skilled designers are bringing CSS to the mainstream. The explosion in popularity is ushering in a new wave of possibilities for web design. CSS provides greater design control, allows more flexibility, and enables sites to become attractive, accessible, and faster-loading, all at the same time.
Bowman, Douglas. Stop Design (2004). Presentations>Web Design>Standards>CSS
#32948
Pushing Your Limits (and Other Secrets of Designing with CSS)
What do you do when you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall? When it seems your creativity is limited by how much CSS you know how to beat into submission? How do you resist the temptation to give it all up and go back to tables? Why does it feel like the pros are constantly inventing new techniques each week, when you’re still struggling to keep up with the stuff you read about last year? Understanding how and where CSS fits into the design process is key to knowing how to push your own limits. Reviewing the principles of existing techniques — and learning why or how they came about — can extend your capabilities and help you gain confidence in solving future problems on your own.
Bowman, Douglas. Stop Design (2004). Presentations>Web Design>Standards>CSS
#32950
The Effect of Web Standards on Users
The current crop of web standards (XTHML & CSS) have had a dramatic effect on the work of the web designers who have adopted them. Writers of the best kinds have trumpeted the benefits of these standards over the coding practices that had become second nature to most (image spacers, anyone?).
Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards
#32951
Who Cares How Pretty Web Sites Are?
A few weeks back, I wrote about why I think web standards are difficult to learn. I wrote that because I was spending 80% of my time getting my code into XHTML 1.0 and styling it with CSS so that it rendered consistently across 5 or 6 browsers. What was I doing the other 20% of the time? Creating content, of course. I was putting together what a huge percentage of my site visitors come for. When I thought about it in these terms (time spent), I felt like styling with CSS was a lot of work for comparatively little gain. After all, people will still be able to find the site, read the content, and click on the links, whether or not I’ve styled it.
Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Usability
#32953
Some Reasons Why Web Standards Are Difficult to Learn
It seems like the box model shouldn’t be difficult to learn, but it is. I’m not sure why, but I think it may have to do with complexity that arises when you have boxes within boxes. At that point, it becomes an exercise of adding margin here, taking away padding there, and setting margins and paddings to 0 over there. Combine that with floating and positioning: relative, absolute, fixed, and it gets hard to know where the spacing between objects comes from, even when you’re working in standards-supporting browser like Mozilla. On top of this you have the box model hack…which only complicates things further. Even browsers get the box model wrong.
Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>CSS
#32956
Are Designers Focused Enough on User Needs?
I find that many designers give much more of their time to learning the latest standards trick than learning the latest “designing for users” trick. Here are a few reasons why this may be so.
Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>User Centered Design
#32957
In one of my introductory articles I stated that I do not care much for validation, yet I use well-formed XHTML 1.0 Strict (no less) as my preferred standard and CSS for layout purposes. If so, why on earth would I claim not to care about, or ignore, validation?
Hilhorst, Didier P. Nundroo (2004). Articles>Web Design>Standards>XHTML
#32958
Web Design Going in the Wrong Direction?
There’s way too much talk about CSS and XHTML and Standards and Accessibility and not enough talk about people. CSS and Standards Compliant Code are just tools — you have to know what to build with these tools.
Signal vs. Noise (2004). Articles>Web Design>Standards>XHTML
#32959
When I visit a website, especially if it’s the site of a competitor or a prospective client, I like viewing source and take a look at what’s under the hood. It’s one of my not-so-secret obsessions. And I am way too often absolutely disgusted by what I see. The web is overflowing with sites that use horribly invalid, broken, and inaccessible markup.
456 Berea Street (2004). Articles>Web Design>Standards>XHTML
#32960
This article highlights the benefits of using Web standards for business sites (Internet, intranet and extranet sites). It is aimed at stakeholders from the marketing, communication and IT departments.
Nonnenmacher, François. Web Standards Project (2003). Articles>Web Design>Standards
#32961
Les Standards Web Pour L'Entreprise
Les standards du Web apportent aussi leur lot d’avantages aux sites d’entreprise, Internet, intranet et extranet. Voyons comment les décideurs marketing, communication et informatique pourront tirer parti de l’utilisation des standards au sein de leur entreprise.
OpenWeb (2003). (French) Articles>Web Design>Standards
#32962
Why Standards Harmonization is Essential for Web Accessibility
This document introduces the concept of harmonization and causes of fragmentation in the area of Web accessibility standards, and examines the impact of harmonization and fragmentation on Web developers, tool developers, and organizations. It also suggests action steps for promoting Web accessibility standards harmonization.
W3C (2006). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Collaboration
#33043
UTF-8: The Secret of Character Encoding
Character encoding and character sets are not that difficult to understand, but so many people blithely stumble through the worlds of programming without knowing what to actually do about it, or say "Ah, it's a job for those internationalization experts." No, it is not! This document will walk you through determining the encoding of your system and how you should handle this information. It will stay away from excessive discussion on the internals of character encoding.
HTML Purifier (2005). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Language
#33134
Creating Bulletproof and Easy to Complete Web Forms
Effective form design is a great way to boost conversion rates. Jason Fried and Matthew Linderman share with us the secret of how to create attractive and functional forms.
Fried, Jason and Matthew Linderman. Peachpit Press (2004). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Forms
#33338
Information Mapping is a proprietary method for the analysis, organisation, and presentation of information. It is based on the needs of the users and their purpose in using the documentation. Information Mapping has three parts: analysis, organisation, presentation.
Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2007). Articles>Documentation>Information Design>Standards
#33382
Here you will find articles about web standards, accessibility and usability. Occasionally there will be articles where we digress from these topics. My hope for the future: web accessibility will not be around as a topic anymore. Noone will be able to make a living as an accessibility expert because all web sites will be accessible and accessibility will be an integral part of all development efforts. All authoring tools will comply with the ATAG recommendation and editors will only have a vague memory of how difficult it was to publish accessible information in the early 21st century.
Krantz, Peter. Standards Schmandards. Resources>Web Design>Standards>Blogs
#33388
Using Ajax for Creating Web Applications
In the past few years, developers could choose between two approaches when building a web application. The first approach was to create a screen-based system with very rich interactions using a sophisticated, powerful technology such as Java or Flash. The alternative approach was to create a page-based system using easier-to-learn core web standards like XHTML and CSS whose more basic capabilities force less-rich interactions. A new technological approach, dubbed Ajax, might just be the right mix between the two.
Porter, Joshua. User Interface Engineering (2005). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Ajax
