Introduction
Ensuring your website is engineered correctly using a standards based
approach with XHTML and CSS is the best way of achieving customer satisfaction
when they visit your site. AxSWeb specialise in creating highly usable,
accessible and standard compliant websites for clients. By using accessible and
standards based techniques from the ground up AxSWeb maximise your return on
investment, as the site is not only accessible to all, it is more efficient,
easier to maintain and more likely to perform well on search engine listings.
The Standards Based approach
Web standards for page construction and accessibility are fundamental to the
future of your website. Websites which don't meet today's standards are less
likely to work properly in tomorrow's browsers. The impact on the page designer
is minimal. A good page design is one which is usable, so a designer will always
have this uppermost when doing the storyboard. Problems arise when the layouts
are implemented in code. The web page author must make sure that the creative
brief is met, while ensuring the pages meet current standards and legislation.
There is a strong argument for keeping the design and coding of websites
separate, preferably undertaken by different teams. It is no longer acceptable
to use the web page export feature of the desktop publishing package that was
used to create the mock-up.
"Many accessibility features are easily implemented if they are planned
from the beginning of Web site development or redesign. Fixing inaccessible Web sites
can require significant effort, especially sites that were not originally "coded"
properly with standard XHTML markup, and sites with certain types of content such as multimedia."
[W3C, 2007 - external site]
Copyright © 1994-2006
W3C® (MIT,
ERCIM, Keio)
The problem
The World Wide Web is littered with websites constructed using archaic and inaccessible techniques.
The situation would be tolerable if those sites were truly archaic with mainly obsolete content, however,
one only has to do a search for website design companies and pipe the URLs through validation engines to
find the true scale of the problem. One local website design house claiming to be the
'Best Website Designers in *******' have a home page with 78 validation errors/warnings, over 100
accessibility warnings and a user interface breaking several fundamental accessibility ground rules.
Constructing compelling and interesting websites is a challenge which can be
met using simple techniques, but requires a commitment from the client and the
developer to use current techniques and practices. Developers need to avoid the
pitfalls of inappropriate use of media rich technology interfaces and need to
resist the pressure from clients who want to specify technologies without really
understanding the consequences.
Appropriate content
The worst websites intermingle design and content with no consideration for
the ease of use or accessibility of the final pages. The mantra of AxSWeb
is "Don't let the tail (design) wag the dog(content)". This doesn't mean to say
that design is secondary. Good design is what will sell your site. However, the
design must be implemented in such a way that the content is usable under all
circumstances, e.g. with images turned off, or without the use of incompatible
plug-ins.
So, the separation of design and content are fundamental to the
creation of the best websites. When done properly a website can be re-designed
with minimal, or no, content re-engineering. Likewise, content can be added with minimal
exposure to design incompatibility issues. We have a win-win situation.