Buzz Archives for April 2003
We do declare:
If the ESPN and Wired redesigns (among others) are factors encouraging you to develop standards-compliant sites, visits to the W3C QA Interest Group article about standards compliant development techniques and their full list of valid DOCTYPE declarations are must-reads.
By Ben Henick | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Check one… Check two… Sibilance
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The Checky project has released version 1.5 of their great little validation add-on for Mozilla, Phoenix/Firebird, Beonex and Netscape. New in this version is the ability to check files on your local filesystem with the services that accept file uploads, like the W3C's markup and CSS validators. Other additions since the ...
By Porter Glendinning | Filed in Validation
- W3C remixed
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The winners are in for the WThRemix contest. The challenge was to come up with a fancy new design for the W3C homepage using valid, accessible XHTML and CSS and eschewing tables.
By Anders Pearson | Filed in Design
- Tools And Views You Can Truly Use
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A couple o' cool tools are now available—the kind you really want because you'll actually use them. What's more, they're free. First up is LogValidator, a new utility from the W3C that works using your server's logs. It validates the most frequently visited pages allowing you to clean up your high-traffic ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Validation
- Top of the Charts
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For those of you who loved Eric Meyer's terrific CSS browser charts and lamented their disappearance upon the shutting down of WebReview's servers, lament no more! Netscape's DevEdge has not only published these much-loved CSS Support Charts on DevEdge, but has done so under a Creative Commons license, ensuring that this ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in CSS
- .course { cost: free; }
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Whoever said there was no such thing as a free lunch never sat down to dine with the great folks at Westciv. If you're looking to beef up your CSS layout skills, add a dash of spice to your forms, and serve up non-screen media, you need to place your ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Training
- The tables are turned
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Dave Hyatt: Safari to drop table support. The next release of Safari will be fully embracing Web standards by dropping all support for tables. From now on, any pages that use tables will cause Safari to play a very loud raspberry sound and refuse to display the page. Auto width tables will ...
By Mark Pilgrim | Filed in April Fools
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation
By Matt May | December 11th, 2008
After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I’d like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards.
I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation:
WCAG 2.0 and a new Guns ‘n’ Roses album in the same year. What’s the world coming to.
Interesting comparison. They’ve each had about as many pre-releases. In any case, I can say, having spent over 8 years with it, that WCAG 2 is not as entertaining as Chinese Democracy. But I do think that it’s better equipped to stand the test of time.
If I had to pick one thing I’m most happy about, I’d say it’s that the HTML- and text-centrism in WCAG 1 is largely gone. In its place is a much more flexible (dare I say robust?) concept of accessibility-supported technology. So when newer technologies can show themselves to be directly accessible, they too can be used in WCAG 2-conformant content.
Over the years, many people have conflated “WCAG-conformant” with “accessible,” and that’s led to people making statements like: “Don’t use JavaScript–it’s inaccessible.” That’s bad for everyone, from users with disabilities who actually can work with JavaScript (which is to say, the vast majority), to Web designers and developers, to policymakers, to those developing new technologies.
With WCAG 2, “Don’t use x” is no longer valid. (Was it ever?) It is now up to you, the developer, to work on the direct accessibility of your content, no matter what technology you choose. I believe we’re about to experience a new wave of accessible design techniques, as a result.
But first, we need to flush “Don’t use x” out of our system. Some are accustomed to saying it about anything they’re not comfortable with. That’s only holding accessible design back. It’s time to learn what’s out there, today, and use it in everyday Web design. It’s time to make everyone’s Web more accessible. Have a look at the WCAG 2.0 Recommendation, and its supporting material. Then, start thinking about what a more accessible Web could be. We still have a lot of work to do.
Filed in Accessibility, Accessibility TF, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general) | Comments (8)