[nfbcs] HTML Standards WAS Re: evaluation display of a web page

Sun Nov 3 17:25:31 UTC 2013

Mike,

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the group that does a lot of what 
you describe for HTML and other web stuff, including coming up with 
accessibility standards and best practices for browser developers and 
des/devs alike. The standards aren't law, though, so it's up to the 
developers to learn them and follow them or not.

Most modern browsers are standards-compliant, so designing for them is 
easy. Just write your HTML and CSS and everything properly, and your 
design will look and work just as you intended! Then you get to go back 
and hack it all up with complicated work arounds for Internet 
Explorer... Des/devs who are fussy about their craft and code complain a 
lot about this, even though it seems -- or actually is -- where you make 
most of your money, both in design and maintenance. /lol/

I've only been doing really basic web design the past few years, and I 
kinda just use my same Drupal templates so haven't design or coding for 
all the new busy, busy web pages with embedded this and that. Therefore, 
I haven't tried using any of the accessibility checkers on them. When I 
was using Dreamweaver back in the day, it had a pretty good checker 
built in that would analyze code and let you know about things you might 
have overlooked. There were a few others I would use through the W3C 
site, but I can't remember their names. They didn't make up for careless 
coding and bad design decisions, but they were really helpful.

Unfortunately, it is possible to just slap together a bunch of HTML and 
have a web page look fine, never mind all that nitpicky clean coding and 
careful observation of the DOM and accessibility and anything but 
whether it looks right in IE. You can toss in all sorts of whiz bang any 
old way to impress yourself and the boss who is not a designer and does 
not know about all that coding and geek stuff... So the internet is a 
threat to the sanity of many, especially screen reader and braille 
users. /lol/

I dunno. I like the free and open nature of the web, so I'm against 
regulation and control. I also like to browse the web without losing my 
marbles, so I am strongly in favor of strict regulation and enforcement, 
possibly through military action. Since I've phased out professional web 
design, unless somebody tosses me a big paying project and I can hire a 
graphic designer, I can just sit back and have opinions about other 
people's work. /lol/

Tami

On 11/03/2013 04:09 AM, Mike Jolls wrote:
> Hi April
>
> Just to set the record straight ... in case I led you to believe that I evaluate websites ... I don't.  At least not professionally ... not yet.
>
> It has often been my conviction that there HAS to be some way to do this.  While it is true there is a wide variety of combinations of how the HTML can be put together, and the fact that HTML and web technology is constantly evolving, it just seems that there should be a way to identify what is legal HTML.  I think this would have to be done by formally defining what is legal in something like Backus Naur Format (BNF) in the same way as how BNF is used to formally design a computer language.  It's through such a mechanism that we're able to write compilers and edit the programmers input and determine when there are syntax errors in the user input.  I'm not saying it would be easy.  There would have to be a national consensus that this is important and that it would be done.  However I do think it's possible.  HTML, after all, is a language to browsers.  Once the rules were defined, then a standars group could write the set of tests that I spoke about in my previous email.  Developer
s could then run their HTML code against the standard set of tests which would be smart enough to receive the entire HTML document and test it for meeting accessibility requirements.  Thus, the governing body could release the new set of standards and say ... "here is the version of standards that you should be coding to" ... and the developers would know the rules.  New ideas and new HTML capabilities could also be proposed to the governing body, and the new set of HTML would then be submitted to the accessibility coders so that new tests could be written.    You'd probably want to make the rules such that a new HTML feature couldn't be released until at least the code editing for accessibility had been completed.
>
> I'm not sure how well the accessibility companies would keep up.  It might be that the governing body approves the new HTML, and the validation rules are done, and then after all that, the accessibility companies get the new standard.  That wouldn't be too good because then you'd have a "lag" between what HTML is out there, and what the accessibility software can actually handle.  You might need to set the rules such that the governing body approves, the rules are created, AND the accessibility software companies get a chance to make their changes BEFORE you release the new version of HTML to the general community.  That could, however, interfere with the creativity aspect of web design, if the accessibility companies couldn't keep up with the changes.
>
> I have, however, digressed from my original point, that I don't do this HTML evaluation for a living.  It is something I am interested in, but it's not what I do.  Right now I'm trying to improve my computer science skills and trying to learn web programming so that I can perhaps position myself for what I'm talking about in the future. > Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 17:04:43 -0400
>> From: aprilbrownwrite at gmail.com
>> To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page
>>
>> Ten years or so ago, I learned HTMl and attempted to code accessible
>> from W3schools.  They do have Code check.  I don't think it's that
>> good.  In the last year I have lost most of my vision, and much of my
>> hearing, so it's even more important than ever!  And I always wanted to
>> code accessible.  Though, knowing some varying issues, especially with
>> vision, I'm not 100% sure it is possible to code for every variation.  I
>> may be wrong.
>>
>> Hi *Susan Stanzel,  It would be wonderful if programs on both ends could
>> fix the issues to make websites more accessible.  And I agree.  I have
>> tried to learn NVDA, and well, learning keyboard workarounds is ten
>> times harder than HTML ever was!
>>
>> Hi ***Mike Jolls - Since you evaluate websites for accessibility, can I
>> ask you a question?  For the last few years, my author website has been
>> on a Google site.  Are Google websites accessible?  I can change some of
>> the coding, though much of what I think would need to be adjusted is not
>> accessible to the page holders that I can find.
>>
>> Thanks.  Still new to the world of mostly deaf and blind, and the screen
>> readers that confuse me when they don't just work when I open the page.*
>>
>> *
>>
>>
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