Once Upon A Time Online
In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. Nobody could have anticipated just how popular this would become or how it is now taken for granted as part of everyday life, both at home and in business. However, we have come a long way since then, though ensuring that information on the web is accessible to everyone is something we should all take seriously, as there is a question of equality at stake.
World Wide Web Consortium
To address this, Tim Berners-Lee founded (and is the Director of) the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C for as it is better known. The W3C “develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential”. W3C have developed a system of checking that a website has been built to a good standard, that ensures care has been taken to make the information contained in that particular website accessible to all web users. The ‘Markup Validation Service’ which has been developed and is provided free of charge by W3C, actually analyses the way a website has been coded (i.e. built).
In order for a website to pass mark-up validation tests, the individual pages within the site must all validate, as this will help ensure that all users, including those that are blind or visually impaired, should in theory be able to access the information contained in your website using specially developed internet browsers. It is worth noting that the Markup Validation Service assesses a web page based on how it is coded and whether it complies with it's specific set of rules. However this is not advocating that a website (or page within a website) is necessarily well designed, or that is contains useful content - that is down to the publisher. Websites built to this standard (or more specifically the individual pages within it) that pass the W3C validation tests, are permitted to display the W3C ‘valid’ icons. These should never be considered as a W3C ‘seal of quality’, but it does however go to show that care and effort have gone into ensuring a website is accessible and in theory, ethical. For more information, go to: W3C Help and FAQ
The Disability Discrimination Act
The government takes web accessibility very seriously and in 1995 The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) was passed to address the discrimination that many disabled internet users faced (and in some cases still do). Section III of the DDA which relates to accessible websites, came into force in the UK on 1st October 1999 and the Code of Practice for this section of the DDA was published on 27th May 2002. Basically what this means is; if you are a registered UK company or organisation, with a website that does not meet minimum W3C web standards, you are effectively in breach of the law. So in theory, if you haven't taken appropriate steps to try and ensure your website can be used by disabled people, basically, you could be sued. On (perhaps?) a lighter note however;
Search Engine Optimisation
Google and all the major search engines, look much more favorably upon sites built to (current) best practice web standards. Search engines perform a process called ‘spidering’ which is effectively ‘search-bots’ which automatically scour the world wide web to constantly update the information amassed on the internet super highway, held on the search engine's database. So in theory, if your website has been built to current best practice web standards and contains plenty of useful, well structured content, packaged in a website that is easy to navigate (preferably including a site-map), then you should find that over time, your website ranking will improve naturally and will consequentially rank well in search engine listings. This is a great and free way to help with Search Engine Optimisation, the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines.
Ethically Guided
At Little Black Box we are constantly challenging ourselves and looking for new ways to ensure that everything we create for the internet is accessible to all users, regardless of what technology they use to access it. From an ethical stance, we are committed to educating and advising our clients to help ensure that all of the websites that we create follow W3C guidelines very carefully. In doing so, not only does this help to ensure that steps are taken towards a more accessible internet for all, but because websites which have been built to best practice web standards, without spending an extra penny, our clients often benefit from search engine optimisation.
We hope that this article and the links provided have been useful to you. If you would like to speak to us in more detail to find out how best practice web standards can help benefit your business or organisation, then please contact us for some free, friendly advice.
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Published by FV, 01 April 2009
