Web design standards

[Richard Conyard]

There are a fair few web design companies on here, most of which producing good looking work. Looking under the hood however it's obvious that some have no concept of web design standards. That is valid mark-up, valid css, wai, etc.

I guess the question is do people here (in general), feel that a website designer can truly call themselves a website designer and offer there services to other people without conforming to these standards?

From the other side of the equation, if you have bought a website is it compliant? If not are you happy that you've paid for a job that wasn't done properly?


Useful tools are:
http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/
http://webxact.watchfire.com/

[epiphany]

The standards are a positive thing for web design that I support 99% of the time. When the world of browsers, standards and coding languages all work in harmony then I'll call it 100%. What you also have to remember when it comes to standards is that it does take longer to code a website neatly and so that it adheres perfectly to all standards and sometimes clients aren't that bothered and just want a cheap price. Some people will always want a KIA no matter how good a Ferrari is :)

[Richard Conyard]

I know that sometimes there isn't the time to do everything perfectly, I believe there is room for a little ivory snow here.

One of the good things about the web is that anyone with a computer and a text editor can knock up some web pages. One of the annoying things is that anyone with a computer and a text editor can knock up some web pages and think they can then charge for it.

I guess the trouble is unless you know about all the underlying stuff already it's far too easy to be confused by web companies. I'd love there to be a campaign for greater awareness of these standards. Especially using your analogy of the car some sites wouldn't pass their MOT.

[sparklyscotty]

I think that the standards are a VERY good idea. I created my own website which is up and running at www.chimerique.co.uk
It looks good (to the untrained eye) but I have NO training, and 'under the hood' as you put it, it's a mess.

As epiphany put it "sometimes clients aren't that bothered and just want a cheap price".. I have to confess to actually designing website for people who fall into this category. I offer them dirt cheap website that are VASTLY improved from their one-page home made jobs, but I would never dream of actually calling myself a webdesigner.

And as a last point - I agree that it is really scary to see the number of webdesigners out there who are selling their services and don't seem to adhere to any kind of standards or have any marketing knowledge for their own product, let alone for their clients'.

-Angel-

[epiphany]

ah yes I do agree with you on that one, it's disturbing seeing a web designer that can't code to w3c standards even if you asked them; and to cap it off they are charging for it :( The problem is that people don't know they are buying crap. It's like selling a car that's falling to pieces to a person that has never seen a car before, they don't know any better. One of the biggest barriers I have in gaining clients is getting past the bad feelings they have for previous web designers. When I see web designers with truly terrible sites I just feel sorry for the clients who are wasting their money.

[Webstuff]

One of the annoying things is that anyone with a computer and a text editor can knock up some web pages and think they can then charge for it.


I don't think this is the problem - the problem is that anyone with FrontPage can "knock up some web pages and think they can charge for it" ;) Standards compliance is good, to an extent. I use HTML 4.0 transitional, because an incredible amount of people have never upgraded their browsers and have trouble with xHTML.

Another good difference to remember is that a web-designer is NOT a web-developer / coder, and they are paid (unless otherwise stated) for their design work, not W3C compliance.

To summarize, standards are great, but aren't nescessarily sacred scripture; if your site looks good in the major browsers, and doesn't upset search engines, you've done a good job.

(DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHEN ALL CODE WAS WRITTEN IN CAPITALS? :P)

[Richard Conyard]

Where would you stand with this in light of the Disability Descrimination Act. I know the guidelines are distinctly fuzzy about what reasonable steps are, but websites are definately covered.

What position would you be in if a client of yours were sued for having an inaccessible website? (I am aware there is no case law, yet...)

[Webstuff]

Richard ... thats a very strange question. If a law came to pass that webmasters could be sued for their website being "inaccessible", we'd lose most of the internet. Very few websites stick to pure standards.

However, mine rarely breach them. The extent to which mine ever have is using the bgcolor tags (alongside CSS to support older browsers), background, and color tags. This is simply an act to allow more peoples browsers to view a website with some degree of visiual consistency.

Also, accessability for those with eyesight problems is supported via Client-side CSS (or simply specialist browsers), which (as I'm sure you already know) use the !important settings to overide the design properties of a website.

[Richard Conyard]

Richard ... thats a very strange question. If a law came to pass that webmasters could be sued for their website being "inaccessible", we'd lose most of the internet. Very few websites stick to pure standards.


Actually we already have one, although it would be the company being sued rather than the web design company. The DDA requires that reasonable steps are taken to make UK company websites accessible (the reasonable steps part is very fuzzy).

As of yet no company has been sued, although there are cases of companies settling out of court.

I'm guessing if a company were sued they would inturn sue the developing company, or at least attempt to.

[Richard Conyard]

Sorry if that sounds somewhat alarmist, there are plenty of articles that would back this up, but the following is a short one:

http://www.out-law.com/page-4223

[Webstuff]

That "reasonable steps" quote bothers me... aside from allowing CSS overrides, what can a company hope to do? This has little to do with design standards, surely? Short of the afformentioned !important overide, what is a website expected to support? This sounds like something that's been implemented with no real thought or research (whats new there?)... I'd be interested in more information, though I'm pretty sure my websites would come up to scratch ;)

Short of filling a page with Javascripts to enlarge font, what can a website itself provide?

[Richard Conyard]

Yeah, the reasonable steps bit is a problem since no one knows what they are!

Typically it's assumed (ass you and me etc.), that WCAG Single A is an acceptable level. More can be found out at:

http://www.w3c.org/wai/

[Webstuff]

I see, main problems being missing ALT's and broken code. I won't have a problem there, but I see the point now - many websites use images for navigation, so without ALT that would be an unpleasent experience.

Cheers for the link.

[epiphany]

Sydney Olympics were sued 20k by a disabled guy as their site wasn't accessible. This scenario was different though as they were contractually obliged to have an accessible website (due to grants they recieved)

[mumper]

Found this,



The Disability Discrimination Act(DDA) which states:

“The Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person: by refusing to provide (or deliberately not providing) any service which it provides (or is prepared to provide) to members of the public.”

On the Disability Rights Commission(DRC) website you will find the following quote:

“All organisations that provide goods, facilities or services to the public, whether paid for or for free, are covered by the Disability Discrimination Act, no matter how large or small they are.”




Readers should take careful note of the full context of the quotes above.
The Act only mentions websites as a possible solution to accessibility problems, not as a possible cause.
Not surprisingly in that case, no standards are mentioned, and never could be, as there are no standards in existence, only GUIDELINES.

[Richard Conyard]

Readers should take careful note of the full context of the quotes above.
The Act only mentions websites as a possible solution to accessibility problems, not as a possible cause.

Sorry, not the case. Along with the DDA are a set of guidelines in which websites are specifically mentioned, the example they use is an online booking system for an airline.

There are standards available (see the WAI link), but how much of this needs to be followed for reasonable steps is unknown.

On a side note, anyone (not a designer), check out their site with those links and get a clean bill of health?

[Webstuff]

None of my pages validate properly on one of my websites because of an affiliate link ;) Still, all are accessible via clearly defined text links, and no styles are defined as !important, so overrides client-side wouldn't be a problem. Also, my layouts mean that you'd still have something resembling the origional if you stretched it out of all proportion with large text.

The law / guidelines seem badly phrased though, and I can't believe they'll ever be forcefully implemented for non-government websites (think about how many millions of webpages go online every day...). As guidelines though, I think it's a fine idea, and will continue to develope my sites as close to W3C standards as nescessary.

[LittleAcorn]

I'm not a web designer and don't know much about HTML and design etc.

However, in the initial consultation with my web designer he explained that he ONLY makes sites that are valid XHTML and CSS. He had actually left his previous employer because he felt strongly about this point and the company he worked for didn't.

Even though I can't claim to understand these terms, he made such a strong arguement for using this type of design that I was sold.

I notice I have extra pages on my site (that no one visits) such as this one: http://acornstudios.ca/accessibility/index.htm which presumably are related to the above discussion on disability discrimination.

[Richard Conyard]

Well you know what they say webstuff, 'the laws an ass'. I think you're probably right, it will take one of the bigger websites to get sued before anyone looks at it in the commercial sector.

Acorn, just had a quick look at your site. It looks good and your designer has done a very good job technically :-)

[Andy @ BlueLight Creative]

Richard,

Have you run any code validation tools on your site recently? You have a few broken links. :roll:

[Richard Conyard]

Thanks,
Managed to find the one broken link. One of our showcases was linking to a websites secondary domain which they disabled briefly! D'oh!

[Andy @ BlueLight Creative]

:)

[UKRobin]

The big problem with the DDA and web sites is deciding what is and what is not 'Reasonable Adjustment'

My site for example was designed by me some 2 yrs ago and like 90% of all web sites does not comply to the current web requirements. My problem is that I have got my site into the top 5 of all UK search engines and a high PR (Page rank) of 5 out of ten (Google has a PR of 9 for example) noboby can yet guarentee that my current placing and PR will not be lost if I make the required adjustments to my site.

Should I loose my placing then my business goes down the pan as this is my window to my business world and how my customers find me. My adjustments so far have included.

Having clearer text
Black text on plain white back ground
Placed mouseover text on all images
Removed all flash images etc.
Removing colours that make reading text dificult.

As a DDA access auditor inspecting building etc I understand and implement 'Reasonable Adjustment' as suggested by the DRC and the DDA. I have therefore implemented the same 'Reasonable Adjustment, to my web site and shall continue untill my high search engine placment can be guarenteed to remain.

Dont get me wrong, I DO want to comply but not at the risk of losing my business I have taken these steps after the DRC confirmed and logged my decision. As a disabled person myself I fully understand the need to meet the needs of ALL disabled people and will do just that when such a guarentee can be made.

It should be understood that what is and what in not 'REASONABLE' is still very much a grey area with many aspects needing to be considered. If your business is to suffer badly because of changes to meet these requirements then those changes are not deemed as 'Reasonable Adjustment' and should not be enforced, 'Reasonable Adjustment' should then be implememted. The cost involved of any changes should also be taken into account.

I have implemented 'Reasonable Adjustment' but placed the rebuild of my site into a feasibility study with future changes in mind when the right SEO comes along. All very vague I know but then so is the DDA at the moment.

For more on 'Reasonable Adjustments' of building and services (Not web sites) please see http://www.access-auditing.com/dda-info.htm

[Richard Conyard]

I might be being nieve here, but moving towards WAI compliance will not adversely effect your page rank. If you're worried about page locations then these could be copied.

The reasonable adjustment part of things on the web is a tricky one, and I for one would appreciate the government making things a little clearer for both us designers and for our clients.

[UKRobin]

I might be being nieve here, but moving towards WAI compliance will not adversely effect your page rank. If you're worried about page locations then these could be copied.

The reasonable adjustment part of things on the web is a tricky one, and I for one would appreciate the government making things a little clearer for both us designers and for our clients.

You are not being naive at all Richard. The DDA is very unclear in its directions and does lay the decision making in the hands of access auditors by constantly quoting 'unless argued in an access report'

There is a very interesting article by Vivien King and one I agree with 100% The Disability Rights Commission in its relevant Code of Practice lists some of the factors that will be taken into consideration when considering reasonableness:
Will taking the proposed step be effective?
How practicable is it for the service provider to take the step?
How much disruption will it cause?
Can the service provider afford it, and what other resources has it already expended on making adjustments relating to the DDA?
See http://www.rics.org/Management/Businessmanagement/Discrimination/Disabilitydiscrimination/Accessibility/rics_bus_oct2004_dda.html

Basically meeting the requirements of the DDA is not a simple open and shut case, peoples lives, businesses and future has to be considered before saying you MUST comply to the act!!

The USA has had the ADA now for some 15 years and although its facilities (talking about buildings/services now) are far more accessible that ours in the UK, we are slowly getting there.
The DDA, DRC etc know that compliance to the act will not and can not happen over night but those who are currently unable to meet the needs of the disabled should have addressed these issues and be looking at ways to comply.

OK before all the Access auditors/consultants jump up and shout at me, just look in any MacDonald’s, Travel Lodge, Little chef etc and you will see that most do not comply BUT they all have future plans in progress to comply and the same applies to web sites.

Any new sites should of course be looking at getting it right, existing sites need to plan a way forward without going bust through the cost involved or lose the site into hyperspace because of so called quick fixes.

I agree with you about web compliance 100% but lets get it right for everybody.

Food for thought.