I’ve had a small obsession with learning about web standards recently, mostly because a world of truly standards-compliant browsers is a world where web developers don’t have to test their web sites on all the latest (and very quirky) browsers.
Along with attaining standards compliance comes meeting the needs of those with disabilities, such as those who are visually impaired or blind. The Internet is a wonderful place full of nearly unlimited amounts of information and it would be a shame if your web site was preventing people from tapping into part of it!
So how do you make your web site standards compliant and make sure it caters to the needs of those with disabilities? Well, this MSDN article does a great job of explaining all of this:
MSDN: Building ASP.NET 2.0 Web Sites Using Web Standards
One thing I like about the article is that even though it is from Microsoft, it doesn’t hide the fact that Internet Explorer isn’t quite up-to-snuff when it comes to meeting some of the stricter standards (like XHTML Strict). The article also offers some work-arounds for some of the problems one will encounter with trying to make a site fully standards compliant.
In addition to the MSDN article, these two articles may also come in handy when designing more usable web sites:
As you'll read in some of these web sites, there are laws that require a web site to be accessible (Section 508) when working with government agencies.
As a site designer (in addition to being a developer), one thing I’m finding challenging about creating accessible site designs for users with disabilities is that it greatly limits what I can do with my site in terms of formatting and using scripting technologies like DHTML. It seems to me that when designing a site for a client that has business requirement for designing an accessible site, it may be best to either create a text-only version of the web site or make sure there is a CSS style sheet that can display the web site without all the glitz. This also means that dynamic DHTML menus have to go away in favor of more static hyperlinks and sitemaps.