Discuss: Evangelizing Outside the Box: Web Standards and Large Companies

by Peter-Paul Koch

41 Same goes for Web Accessibility

Only web developers who care about web accessibility talk about it, write about it, and read about it. The rest of the world doesn’t even know what it is. Could the same strategy discussed here could work for increasing awareness of the importance of web accessibility?

posted at 08:08 pm on June 13, 2007 by Patty Bradley-Diehl

42 The power lies in the consumer

I have to say that from my personal stand point. There are only two ways to impose web-standards among the design world, particularly large companies. Before I rant any further I would like to point out the obvious. In a strictly programmed environment (c, python etc) the program does not compile unless the code has been symantically and logistically tested and found to pass. This is a strict system, but it does assure that all programs coded in that particular language are, at least, adequate.

Say for example the same principle was applied to a segment of HTML code. It wouldn’t work if the site did not conform to w3c standards. Even if the site was poorly designed (horribly large gifs, mismatching borders etc) it would still conform to w3c standards. This is my first proposal: Target the companies that provide web-editting programs & web-servers. Imagine if apache threw out an error if a tag wasn’t closed. It would be an amazing incentive to get neat (code-wise at least).

My second proposal would be the comsumer. Every standardista needs to put a tag at the bottom of every site they code:
“This site conforms to w3c standards, link->read more about the movement <-link” this would make sure that clients always become associated with having a w3c compliant site. Call it a stamp of pride. Remember that even the largest of businesses are ruled by their clients. With greater client knowledge comes greater pressure upon bigger companies to clean up their act.

posted at 01:07 pm on August 17, 2007 by lasse manson