In early October I was lucky enough to spend some time in China talking to web professionals and students alike about web standards and their current status. It was an interesting couple of weeks that really opened my eyes to what the challenges are when following best practices. What hit me most is that those who support standards are a small and often isolated voice with little or no resources in Chinese to help back up or explain why we need standards and what the benefits are. Here I give a broad overview of what I learnt, challenges and hopefully some ideas of how we can help improve things.

Please do leave a comment if you have any suggestions, thought or insights. I’d also like to expand on the list of resources below so if you have any then post links and I will update the list.

Market forces

In the main those drivers that we see supporting web standards in some European countries, Australia and the States almost act as the opposite in China. There is no legal requirement to make your website accessible and market forces don’t seem to provide a significant enough push. Market forces is an interesting one. I’ve long held that the business case around web standards is essential even in a country that has a legal requirement for sites to be, for example, made accessible. The reasoning for this is that a site owner may be aware they legally have to make a site accessible but unless they see the direct benefit to them they may not implement accessibility properly and instead merely opt to do the bare minimum that needs to be done to comply with the law.

Currently in China there is a weak business case for web standards for a number of reasons. For one Internet Explorer 6 is still the dominant browser with a 95% market share. In general people are tied into using IE6 as most e-commence sites rely on ActiveX to work. This means that there is a trend towards building web pages that only work in IE6 with other browsers given less focus. This is gradually changing however with the rise of alternative browsers such as Opera, Safari and Firefox and Google Chrome. In fact the arrival of Google Chrome did a lot to raise awareness of alternative browsers in the web design community. Developers I spoke to however were very quick to point out that while they may use an alternative browser to IE when building and testing sites they still made heavy use of IE in day to day browsing simply because so many sites depend on it.

This lack of demand for compliant websites is a problem as without the demand there is little incentive for individual developers as well as companies. This may change however, especially as more and more multinationals outsource and base their development work there. With this increasing hopefully the trickle down theory will hold true and multinationals will have an impact on raising knowledge and awareness. When I asked one developer from Microsoft how he got into web standards he said that it was because the company sent over someone especially to train employees in standards based development. This was great to hear and certainly a key channel for advocating web standards. Opera, a long time champion of web standards (disclaimer, I work for Opera but all opinions are my own) are also playing an active role in advocating web standards. It’s at the heart of the development cycle in the Chinese office and the team are also very active in taking part in meet-ups and conferences.

Legal support

While there is a lack of concrete law to support accessible websites it was interesting to see how the Olympics had affected awareness. Public spaces, streets and buildings were much more accommodating and accessible as a result of the games and had done much to make people more aware. This is a start at least and links in well with the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which China ratified in July of 2008. The Convention is the first international legally-binding convention designed to protect and promote the rights of persons with a disability. As China has ratified the Convention they now have to legally support access to information, recreation, employment and education. As Article 9 states:

“State Parties shall also take appropriate measures to…promote access for persons with disabilities to new information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet”.

It remains to be seen the direction this will take but at least China is signed up.

Grass roots advocacy

Most exciting of all was the passion and commitment shown by many web professionals I spoke to. There are some influential bloggers in China who are doing great things to promote standards. Notable bloggers include Jun Chen Wu and Xian An AKA Real Lazy. When talking with Xian An he mentioned that back in 2005, when he first started blogging about standards, he was getting around 1000 hits per day. This seemed to prove that there was a desire for people to learn more or, even if they were not researching for information about standards directly, they are landing on his site which was able to introduce standards.

This seemed to make sense as all the developers I spoke to said they they were more or less self taught. As with many countries web development and standards aren’t always covered in university courses so designers and developers have to self teach. One big drawback here however is the lack of resources in Chinese. This is compounded by the fact that while some ebooks exist they can be too expensive to buy for many people.

Probably most exciting while I was there however was the opportunity to take part in the first ever Web Standards Cafe in Beijing sponsored by Opera. The subject was Web Standards and Web 2.0 and focused largely on how we can support web standards in China. Combining grass roots advocacy such as this with BarCamps I think is a positive way forward.

Supporting web standards in China

There a few things that we can start doing now to help promote web standards and accessible web design in China. It may seem like a daunting task but if this is tackled bit by bit there is no reason why standards can’t become more popular. As the old Chinese saying goes “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand”. It’s not long ago that in Europe, Australia and the States that we were fighting for basic adherence of web standards, it’s worth while to look back and learn from that experience. For now I see the following as being instrumental to enabling web standards.

• Translated resources – top of the list has to be the availability of translated and free resources for people to use. Currently many individuals have contributed their time to translating (see the resources section below) but I can’t help thinking that larger organisations should contribute to these efforts. Check out instructions and guidance on translating W3C resources for more information.
• Multinational responsibility – large international organisations who actively promote and support web standards internationally should do what they can to help support web standards locally in China. This could be done via training in-house, sponsoring free or affordable courses or helping translate resources into Chinese. This should not be restricted to China only.
• Grass root advocacy – developers understand the challenges and problems developers face better than anyone else. Advocacy through blogs, forums, BarCamps and Web Standards Cafe are always a useful way to go. This may take a different shape in China to suit cultural norms but communication and sharing have to be at the root.

So if you are a blogger, a developer, someone in a position to translate or communicate knowledge within your organisation then share what you have. As I mentioned above please do leave a comment if you have any suggestions, thought or insights. I’d also like to expand on the list of resources below so if you have any then post links and I will update the list.

Resources

• Information Accessibility for People With Physical Disabilities Technical Requirements for Web Accessibility (Simplified Chinese), Ministry of Information Industry Telecom Research Institute, the Internet Society of China, Harbin
• Web Content Accessibility Guidlines 1.0, translated by Jun Chen Wu (simplified Chinese)
• Dive into Accessibility, Taiwan, (traditional Chinese)
• Dive into Accessibility, Taiwan (simplified Chinese)
• Realazy, blog about Chinese web standards (simplified Chinese)
• Web Accessibility Toolbar Chinese language version developed by WAT-C and Jun translated by Jedi (Chinese)
• Getting started, making a website accessible, translated by Eagle Liang (simplified Chinese)
• Don’t use “Click here” as link text, translated by Eagle Liang, (simplified Chinese)
• Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered (simplified Chinese)
• Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered (traditional Chinese)
• Web Standards switch, translated by Yammie Yuen (simplified Chinese)
• Government web standards usage, People’s Republic of China (English)
• W3C China office (simplified Chinese)
• BarCamp Beijing (English)
• BarCamp Shanghai (English)
• CSS Zen Garden (Simplified Chinese)
• Opera, W3C and Web standards by Zi Bin Cheah (Simplified Chinese)
• Opera Web Standards Curriculum (English)

For a full list of translated standards in Chinese visit the W3C translation page.

Finally, a huge thank you to Jun Chen Wu for the translation.

在担任 Web Standards Project 组长的几年里，我总是有一股热情与期望，希望创建一个全球性的人际网络。毕竟这才是万维网，对吧？为了强化我们的使命，我认为保持包容的心态才是一个正确的选择，而不是排外的心态。

为了实现这个目标，我考虑为 WaSP 构建一种新的团队。这个团队并非是任务制（Task Force）或者委员制（Committee），而应是一种致力于分享全球资源的工作组。它的职责是提供本土化的翻译、人际联络、信息交换甚至在条件允许的情况下，进行面对面的交流。跟其他团队一样，这个工作组由不同人士组成，用于联系各国的相关组织，为全世界的开发者和设计者提供充足的专业资源。

考虑到我即将卸任，我有些犹豫是否应该提出这个想法，害怕在没有解决掉老问题的情况下，又给 WaSP 带来新的挑战。草根和一些志愿者组织是很难去管理的，例如，显而易见的是带薪工作和家庭对个人来说，它的优先级一定高于志愿者工作。但是，我仍然提出了这个想法，现在，我很高兴当时我做出了这个决定。

在我提出这个建议后，工作组开始逐渐壮大并呈现出民主的自我组织的形态。现在， ILG 正式由两位了不起的女士所带领—— Stephanie Troeth 和 Glenda Sims，她们对专业化的贡献和在此行业的表现都十分出众。工作组聚集了全世界不同地区的杰出人士，我们的使命与愿景正在伴随着我们的热情与感恩的心而不断向前。

因此，今天我怀着无比喜悦的心情荣幸的向大家介绍 Web Standards Project 国际联络组 （ILG)。

此致敬礼，
Molly

Molly E. Holzschlag
Web Standards Project (WaSP) 前任领导人

— Shen Liu