Standards, Compliance, and Accessibility

If you are the owner of a website, and you care how your site is seen, I encourage you to go through the following steps.

1. On a Windows PC, view your site using Internet Explorer version 7 (26.6% usage), version 6 (20% usage) (you will need to find a computer with IE6 because Microsoft does not allow both versions to co-exist), and Firefox (44.2% usage).
   • does everything look right?
   • turn off javascript and view again (see below)
   • if you have any Flash on your site, disable it and view again
2. On a Macintosh, view your site in Safari, Firefox, and Opera.
   • repeat the steps above

Current browser usage statistics
Current operating system usage statistics
Disable Flash in Internet Explorer 7
Disable Flash in Internet Explorer 6 (USER BE WARNED!)
Disable Javascript

The reason I encourage these steps is because any web developer is responsible for doing these things and much more. Unfortunately, there are many problems which can occur due to browser inconsistencies and user level options. Most site owners are unaware that their site may be broken when viewed within other conditions.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has assembled standards that should be followed for any website to provide a visitor with the best user experience. This includes standards that will allow the hearing and sight impaired to benefit from your content.

If you would like a no-cost evaluation of your site, contact me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under Website Design & Development, Website Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.