A week after ending the spring semester I am back in class! I am really excited and (I’ll admit) intimidated, to be taking Web Design. Before taking this class I had heard about Web Standards and Accessibility, but other than knowing that they were good & important I was in the dark on what they actually were. Thanks to my professor (Leslie Jensen-Inman) ever-endeavoring to make the Web a better place, my short-sighted eyes have been opened! Web Standards (generated by the W3C or World Wide Web Consortium) and promoting Accessible sites is so logical, and in many ways obvious, that one might wonder why they are not embraced by all web designers and developers.

The whole point to creating a web site is to communicate to the public, right? So using code that is compliant with the W3C standards, which is proven to make site navigation easier, should be a no-brainer. It also seems practical to have error-free, valid code, which the W3C is more than willing to assist you with at their free on-line validator: www.validator.org.

Web Standards are not just practical, but they also help improve web accessibility for everyone, especially people with disabilities who require assistance from a screen reader or other similar device in order to navigate the web. Careful coding from the beginning can ensure that everyone is able to enjoy all that the Internet has to offer.

The Section 508 Standards at www.section508.gov states the requirements a Federal web site would have to meet, and they are a good place to start for basic web accessibility.

Much of the information in this blog has been gained by reading Learning Web Design by Jennifer Niederst Robbins (the textbook for my class). For a more thorough explanation of Web Standards and Accessibility check out chapters 3 and 10.