Are you concerned about web accessibility standards?

[ukinternet_uk_com]

Tweet

The standards in the UK are getting more and more important - if you have a website you should check these two websites to see if your site meets the recommended standards

The W3C Markup Validation Service
The W3C CSS Validation Service

We realise that accessibility is becomming more and more important and now we make sure that all the websites we create pass these checks.

[moredial]

There is also the DDA which covers sites in the UK. All sites that offer services should pass their requirements as set out in the 1999 act.

UK Law

There is a site where you can test how well your site complies with the accessibility requirements under UK law. Just now I can't find it. Maybe someone else can help there.

[ukinternet_uk_com]

New ones are coming out all the time, that is why we 'Aim' for web standards. In fact, the law is so vague that it is not possible to create a website that the complies with law...as there is not a law that clearly states 'exactly' what the standard should be...hence we 'Aim' for NOT adhere to.

It is very tricky knowing what to do and what not to do but it is important to research it and strive to pass the tests that are out there

[techpro]

I'm not sure that this is of that much importance to affiliate sites. The legislation seems more concerned with sites offering education or job opportunities. Of course, if you want to make sales to disabled people then it is in your interest to make sure your site is accessible to them, but if you don't it should be up to you. This legislation is just another example of the nanny state that the UK has become.

The UK is only relevant to my site in that it is in English, but by far the greatest number of visitors and buyers come from the USA, so they are the people it is aimed at. I use their spellings, and prices are all in dollars. It seems ludicrous to me that UK laws should apply to my website just because I live here. As soon as I can persuade my wife I shall get the heck out of this overcrowded overpriced overtaxed overlegislated cold damp island and run my business from somewhere brighter and sunnier like Spain.

[ukinternet_uk_com]

Its funny that you should say that as we are relocating our family and business to Cyprus in 18 - 24 months time - can't wait to get out of here!

[Dazza30]

I'm not sure that this is of that much importance to affiliate sites.

Ive read somewhere that google takes into account not only good content and seo but valid/correct html,xhtml,css.

If this is the case then its important for affiliates to try and use valid code.

[techpro]

Ive read somewhere that google takes into account not only good content and seo but valid/correct html,xhtml,css.

If this is the case then its important for affiliates to try and use valid code.

There are a lot of myths and disinformation about on the web. I'm not saying that is a myth - only a Google insider could know for sure - but the consensus that I believe is that it is not true. The only thing that matters is that Google's spiders can read your pages.

Obviously if your coding has errors then it's possible that because of these errors the spiders don't read your pages correctly. So checking the validity of the code is a good idea. The editor I use has an option to run the HTML Tidy utility on the code and it shows up mistakes I may have made. But I don't think it matters much obsessing over the use of obsolete tags that browsers still support, just because it is invalid in HTML 4.01 or whatever.

I think there is some confusion here because HTML standards compliance and accessibility for disabled people are really two different issues. I think accessibility issues are more likely to arise with sites that use a lot of JavaScript or Flash which the compliance checkers won't take any notice of anyway.

[adam_knight]

I'm waiting for the day web browsers will have standards.

[fizzbird]

There are a lot of myths and disinformation about on the web. I'm not saying that is a myth - only a Google insider could know for sure - but the consensus that I believe is that it is not true. The only thing that matters is that Google's spiders can read your pages.

From the state of some sites that Google rates highly, I'd say you are correct!

However, isn't a good idea to adopt best standard, with an eye to the day Google does start to make this a requirement?

I'm using Wordpress for new sites as they seem to comply well (aside from the fact that I wouldn't have the first idea how to make a normal html site web compliant!)

[Nashie]

Ive read somewhere that google takes into account not only good content and seo but valid/correct html,xhtml,css.

If this is the case then its important for affiliates to try and use valid code.

Google likes pages which have a good content to code ratio and so in the process of ridding yourself of table layouts and tag soup and creating good clean semantic markup, you will find that pages rank higher.

But to address a point made earlier in the thread you will find pages which have awful code with inline javascript, font tags, tables here there and everywhere which still outperform sites with good xhtml in the SERPS. That is because there are so many factors in deciding which page is the most important for a particular search result, age of a domain would be an important issue, pagerank is another factor (though perhaps less important than it was) but the most important issue would be content - if you want to have a good search engine ranking, create good content, regularly, and create the right link architecture in your site.

Accessibility is a very important issue, I remember seeing a presentation from Patrick H Lauke and Bruce Lawson which had an interesting figure about the benefits of improving the accessibility of the Legal & General Website.

In the process of making the Legal and General site easier for users of assistive technology to use (and therefore opening themselves up to a lot of extra potential customers who probably are not catered for elsewhere), they also increased the number of natural referrals by around 30% as well - happy days!

[Nashie]

However, isn't a good idea to adopt best standard, with an eye to the day Google does start to make this a requirement?

Google is concerned with delivering the most accurate results that it can, I doubt that it will make validation a requirement.

[pete_coles]

Yea, I think standards and accessibility are very important, unfortunately there are times where they are beyond your control, or conflict with the progressiveness of the web (such as using webkit elements in your stylesheets).

I think it's really hard to validate sites which have user provided content at the core, one stray tag from one user and all that hard work complying with standards is out the window.

I also think it's hard if you use third party plugins or widgets as you are relying on them being standardised and valid, which of course not all of them are.

My personal approach is to make my own code as standard, accessible and compliment as possible and cut my loses with the fact elements out of my control might cause conflicts.

[Lawcom]

I totally disagree with Pete... and find that the obsession with doing the right thing is not necessarily the best thing for the business..

And that's where the focus should be, on your core customers, I do understand a disability discrimination policy, but that is what it comes down to policy.. If you create a site to cater for the 0.5 % of partial sighted people who may or may not come to your site to the detriment of selling directly to the masses who will buy, where's the business sense in that.

I'm not saying it can't and shouldn't be done, just that the people who are obessesed with it are like web social workers trying to police the internet in to being in their right on world, when in reality it really doesn't work like that, you have to build your core business first and you can then add a discrimination policy compliant variation if and when that becomes viable..

It's possible to do both from the start, but focus on generating sales first, that is the priority.. it doesn't have to be anything, you don't have to pat yourself on the back because the blind school says thanks.. if that is to the detriment of functionality that the vast majority will be looking for and if you don't have it they'll simple go else where..

[pete_coles]

I do actually agree with you lawcom, I think you miss understand what I meant (or I didn't explain it very well )

I do think that people are too obsessed with validating everything for validations sake and I also believe that some validations 'rules' are a bit pointless anyway.

I do however think that writing you code in a structured and semantic way helps everyone and this is the important bit to me.
Sites that are well coded usually have better cross browser performance with less hacks and degrade better into older browsers and mobile versions.

My original point then was I guess, that web standards always will have limitations, and you shouldn't pander to validation. If you code in a solid manner you shouldn't have much to worry about anyway

[Nashie]

I think it is an important thing to stress that by making a page valid - it doesn't necessarily make it accessible. It is possible to create valid HTML for a poorly designed website. Likewise I have seen users navigate around invalid HTML quite easily.

Validation is desirable and a good yardstick to use as you go through the process of enhancing your site's accessibility, but validation is not the overall goal in itself.

Pete just made a good point where he said:

Sites that are well coded usually have better cross browser performance with less hacks and degrade better into older browsers and mobile versions.

There's simply no good reason NOT to use standards, and if you do use standards you are usually on the right track to providing a decent level of accessibility support.

As for Lawcom - if you code a site adhering closely to the w3c spec for valid code, pages are likely to load faster (remember the 8 second rule?), spiders will find it easier to navigate your site, and typically a rise in search engine rankings - all of these things will help you generate more sales.