Standards and accessibility compliance

What we are doing

There is a growing movement in the Web development industry: a movement toward standards and accessibility compliance. A big problem for Web developers has always been the differences between how various browsers render pages. This means that a Web page that looks and works fine in Microsoft Internet Explorer might look terrible or not work at all in Netscape. Besides these two, there are other browsers such as Mozilla, Opera, Safari, and Firefox just to name a few. Even worse, there are dozens of versions of each browser designed for different computer operating systems. Eventually it can get to the point where a Webmaster spends all his or her time just trying to deal with browser incompatibilities.

Another problem is that many of the traditional methods of designing Web pages overlook critical accessibility issues. What we mean by accessibility issues are those things that have to do with the extent to which a Web site is functional for people with disabilities. For example, visually impaired people often use screen reader software to audibly "read" Web pages to them. If the page is designed with no thought to how it "appears" to a screen reader, the result can be a page that is difficult or impossible to use.

The emerging solution to both of these issues is to design pages that meet certain criteria for compliance with html standards as well as accessibility standards. Those designing to these standards aren't so much concerned that a page renders identically in Internet Explorer 5.0 on a Mac as on Mozilla 0.9 on Linux, but rather that the page meets the standards. Although some browsers are more standards-compliant than others, generally any standards-compliant page will at least render and be functional in any browser. Also, such a page should be compatible with known accessibility assistive technology.

So that then, is our goal. Eventually, all new Web sites / pages developed for the Fayette County Public Schools will meet a minimum of these requirements:

• Valid HTML 4.01 transitional or XHTML 1.1 as determined by the W3C validator
• Valid CSS as determined by the W3C validator
• Accessible by the standards of Section 508 and WCAG 1.0 determined by the "Cynthia Says" validator

All pages meeting these guidelines will bear the icons below:

It will take a while, but eventually all of our pages will meet these guidelines. For more information about this initiative, please contact the Webmaster.

Last update: 9/25/2006 9:10:40 AM