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› May 11, 2003
Web Standards in the UK
Hello fellow readers and thanks to Nate for inviting me on board. I was today pointed in the direction of the Medway Council website, which unbelievably serves up a Word Document as the index. I've written about this elsewhere already, so I shan't say much beyond the obligatory “wtf” concerning the site itself. That said, a little digging and discussion with friends on the subject of web standards within the UK has turned up two gems; the misleadingly named Web Standards Project (note .org.uk) and the UK Web Design Association.
Both sites are replete with 20th century web design bodges and quirks, such as tables and transparent GIFs for layout. The Web Standards Project in particular amusingly states that it will make more information accessible to visually impaired people.
, yet provides its annual report for 2002 in PDF and Rich Text Format only.
None of this much surprises me though. In the UK it often seems that organisations and companies are still very much clinging to old-school methods of web design and development, and are ignorant of the many changes that have taken place in browser technology standards support. I would therefore be very interested to hear any stories of individuals who work in the UK and have experienced the opposite; UK companies or organisations who have firmly grasped the medium in a forward-thinking manner. Are there any? Or am I just being far too optimistic?
Comments
1. May 11, 2003 12:58 PM
2. May 11, 2003 03:39 PM
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Gez Posted…
From the Medway Council link, you could be forgiven your ignorance in thinking that the UK doesn't take accessibility seriously. It's an excellent example of why web development is a profession, and as such should be carried out by professionals. The fact it's a Council's site is even more unbelievable. I know several developers in the UK, and all are aware of the importance of accessibility. Most have taken steps to ensure their sites are accessible. The government has also taken steps to ensure that UK sites are accessible: http://www.drc-gb.org/ http://www.drc-gb.org/newsroom/newsdetails.asp?id=393§ion=1 http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/20010010.htm It's a long road, but a promising one. Whilst we're on the subject of accessibility, kapowaz.net contains a JavaScript error: "objCaption is null or not an object". I'm asked if I want to debug each page I visit. The default option is "Yes", and if I accidentally click it, it closes all my windows.3. May 11, 2003 04:00 PM
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Ben Darlow Posted…
I'm glad to hear that, guys. I guess I must be cynical based on my own experience, which hasn't exactly been encouraging. But if nothing else my post was intended to bring people out of the woodwork so to speak; I'm glad that there are companies out there that place emphasis on accessibility. As for the javascript error on my own site.. I'd be curious to know what browser you got that with, although I'll hold my hands up and admit outright that my site fails many tenets of accessibility in it's current guise; I'm working on a complete redesign which should be a little better.4. May 11, 2003 04:26 PM
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Gez Posted…
Your post was excellent, and I look forward to reading more from you. I would also like to hear about your own experiences regarding accessibility in the UK. I've had bad experiences trying to convince clients the importance of accessibility. The browser I used was IE 6. I have Visual C++ installed, which makes all Microsoft products offer to go into debug mode when an error is encountered.5. May 11, 2003 04:45 PM
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Blo Posted…
Hi, I run a blog about web development and related subjects. It should validate against Strict XHTML 1.0, CSS and Bobby 508. Also it passes all 3 of the validation tests set over at Goer.org that includes serving up the right MIME type (application/xhtml+xml). How is that for a UK web site? * Note: Only the browsers that can handle application/xhtml+xml get sent that header. Older or more stupid browsers that don't except that MIME type (yes we are talking about you IE 6...) get sent a text/html MIME type so the site works in all browsers.6. May 11, 2003 05:21 PM
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Ben Posted…
doh, I posted the old site URL; the redesign is actually at http://www.kapowaz.net/k4/7. May 12, 2003 06:50 AM
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Lon Posted…
Hi Ben, nice new design, but why the BIGGER and smaller font buttons? Why not support built-in scaling of font sizes? Suppose I have a reading disability and need large font sizes. In such a case I would rather not search for increase/decrease font buttons on every website I visit. Get rid of those 'look-mom-I-can-change-the-font-size'-buttons and just support the standard View-TextSize feature of IE or Mozilla. Lon8. May 12, 2003 08:20 AM
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Ben Posted…
why the BIGGER and smaller font buttons? Why not support built-in scaling of font sizes?Ah, would that I could! Unfortunately, Internet Explorer 5+ for Windows only supports font scaling where either a.) the text size isn't specified through CSS, or b.) the text-size is specified with the <font> tag. Neither of these is pretty, and in the latter case is invalid in XHTML. The idea here was to provide an alternative mechanism for font-scaling for IE users, and whilst I'm aware it goes against usability concepts (for consistency), there is no other pre-existing consistent method applied across websites globally. Also, anyone who really does have a reading disability will be painfully aware of IE's substandard font resizing functionality, and if that is enough of a problem for them they will use Mozilla or some other browser anyway. Just to illustrate my point, try visiting web-graphics.com, news.bbc.co.uk, or your own site, www.q42.nl in IE5+ for Windows and try scaling the text using View > Text Size. Try it with the sites you visit most often and you'll see that very few sites set text size in such a fashion that it can be resized in IE (slashdot.org and mozilla.org were the only I could find in a cursory check). Ultimately though, I'm glad to get feedback - the site is a personal one and as such I can choose to be as ignorant or as receptive as possible towards potential visitors; I'd rather be the latter wherever possible though.
9. May 12, 2003 08:51 AM
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radu Posted…
ben, please have a look at this: http://www.homelesspixel.de/bb/ it's css, and it's scalable in IE5.0, IE5.5, IE6.0 (that's not my design, i only have to translate this into css)10. May 12, 2003 09:39 AM
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Noel D. Jackson Posted…
Try using relative font sizes. As in 100% or 110%. Also you can try x-small, small, large, and so on. Also, using em sizes is quite a unique approach. When I work on a project that requires total accessibility that's what I do. But normally if a person needs to change their text size, they will be using an up to date browser with that capability built in. It's totally ridiculous that IE 5 doesn't support it.11. May 12, 2003 09:41 AM
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Gez Posted…
Ben, you can change the font-size in IE 5+ if the size has been specified in em or percent. The only time you can't change it is if it's a fixed unit, such as points or pixels.12. May 12, 2003 09:44 AM
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Ben Posted…
Ah thanks for that Radu, I stand corrected! I notice that's using a percentage size for the base body font which IE likes a lot more. I'll have a go at converting the sizes over to percentages on my new design. Still, I think I'll leave the font scaling buttons in for posterity; they were an interesting widget to play around with, if nothing else (and the size is saved in a cookie for the next time the visitor arrives, regardless of what browser they were using, or the size setting it was on).13. May 12, 2003 02:17 PM
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Jan! Posted…
It appears the Medway site has been improved a bit. It no longer uses a Word document as the index. How very novel...14. May 13, 2003 06:06 AM
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Timo Posted…
Still uses a word document for me, absolutely unbelievable.15. May 13, 2003 09:26 AM
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Andreas Posted…
Hmm. It looks like they switched to a framed html version of the original word document. Certainly have a look at the WCAG - level A logo, which is sort of dropped on the page's left frame.
16. May 14, 2003 05:02 AM
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Graeme Fowler Posted…
The medway site doesn't use a word document as the index, it only uses the .doc extension. This could be any extension the developer chooses.17. May 14, 2003 05:49 AM
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Guy Posted…
OK, Accessible and standards compliant web design is happening here in the UK in many forms. The academic institution I work for designs, builds and maintains sites that use css for design/layout and XHTML for structure. We have been for nearly two years! We have a dedicated team within the organisation who work specifically on SENDA/DDA (UK 508 equiv) and making material accessible to all. Granted, many of our sites still use old design quirks, but this is a big org with many faculties and divisions. There are thousands of sites to update! All new sites, however, are built using XHTML, CSS and follow at least priority 2 of the WAI. As for UK sites promoting accessible design, try these for starters: www.adactio.com, www.clagnut.com, www.accessify.com, www.mcu.org.uk. I think your article is ill-informed on the 'organisations' front, but quite true of UK 'companies'. At least you now know that we don't all have our heads in the sand.18. May 14, 2003 05:35 PM
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Darrel Posted…
The font-size widgets do have a purpose...namely most people are unaware of the fact that they can resize type via their browser. I recently struggled with whether or not to put it on our intranet. As soon as I did, I started getting all sorts of compliments as to what a great idea it was. Until the browsers start making this ability obvious, I don't find anything too wrong with using the widgets.19. May 17, 2003 06:44 PM
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Lon Posted…
People that need to resize fonts because they have a reading 'challenge' know where to find the text size option in the menus. People that don't need to won't. And while we're on the subject: my father doesn't know how to close a window. Please provide him with a close button. He also has problems adding a page to his favorites, making a page his start page, maximizing the window, un-maximizing the window and so on... Isn't it possible to provide buttons for all these things? That would be great. The point I'm trying to make: If there's a standard way of doing something that only some people need to do AND they need to do this for all sites (like having to increase font size because of a visual handicap), then please support it the standard way and don't force people to use your non standard way. Of course if you think it's cool to show off your programming skills by offering something as nerdy as a font size button, please be cool.20. June 4, 2003 06:33 AM
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Andreas Posted…
Ben, There's an interesting article at Accessify.com about the accessibility (and standards compliance) of UK government sites. A quote:Only 12 of the government sites (2.6%) use valid markup, and 146 (31.3%) pass accessibility tests.:-/
Simon Willison Posted…
That is just SO wrong! I don't see that the UK is any further behind when it comes to web standards than the rest of the world. As a UK web developer I have never even heard of either the UK Web Standards Project or the UK Web Design Association. The web development company I work for part time (www.incutio.com) develops using web standards whenever possible and I get the impression that UK web developers are adopting web standards at about the same rate as their counter parts in the rest of the world (i.e not very quickly, but there's a small and growing movement). I'm working on my email to the midway council address, and I'll post it on my blog when I send it off. I suggest as many people as possible do this as well.