Okay, so you're browsing the Web and the page just won't load completely. It's hanging...or taking forever to finish...or the text won't line up adequately...or it's too difficult to read...or the links are misleading, or... Well, you get the idea. For whatever reason, you've come to the page, but the page just won't come to you. Frustration builds, and eventually you leave the site without even considering giving the page a second chance.
Many things may cause such problems, but improper coding is a common culprit: essential, necessary tags may be missing, or perhaps the designer didn't test the page in different browsers. No matter which browser or platform a user may have, and regardless of physical or technical disabilities, various sets of standards and protocols shared among denizens of the web must be followed to guarantee that everyone is able to view web pages properly.
Yet if the major browsers do not fully support these standards, why should we? Indeed, anyone who has designed a web page with some degree of sophistication can tell you how time-consuming and frustrating it is to produce code that renders as desired in all browsers, versions and operating systems. However, in most cases, your content warrants the effort and your users will thank you.
In light of these potential coding problems, a number of organizations have formed to help remedy the situation. The Web Standards Project (WaSP), a coalition of web developers and users, has begun a campaign to persuade the major browser makers to comply with these standards, declaring that "lack of uniform support for W3C standards makes using and developing Web-based technologies unnecessarily difficult and expensive." (For more information, please see http://www.webstandards.org/.)
So what exactly is W3C, and what are its standards? Directed by the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Burners-Lee, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international industry organization which was founded to push the Web to "its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability." Working with input from members around the world, the W3C formulates "recommendations" that constitute the nuts and bolts of the Web, such as HTTP, HTML, CSS, XML, XSL, etc. (Please see http://www.w3.org/ for more information.)
In October of this year, the W3C formerly approved another type of recommendation named the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0. It aims to ensure the accessibility of content to all users regardless of their "user agent" (e.g., desktop browser, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, pagers, etc.) or operating conditions (e.g., operating systems, noisy surroundings, poorly illuminated rooms). In other words, these guidelines focus on the accessibility or usability issues surrounding users' physical and technical limitations, such as visual impairments or Attention Deficiet Disorder (ADD), etc,. rather than on any particular markup language. (For more information on these Web Content Accessability Guidelines, please see http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/.)
However, in order to comply with the WCAG, the code in all of the document's markup languages must be consistent with other W3C recommendations. Many programs have been created to examine hypertext documents and check for such validation, but the code validator available from the W3C web site seems to work rather efficiently, listing and explaining all errors. (Please see http://validator.w3.org/ or http://www.rpi.edu/About/html.html for more information.)
In a user-friendly gesture of its own, the W3C also provides assistance toward achieving compliance with the increasingly stringent Priorities One, Two and Three of the WCAG guidelines, which basically state, respectively, whether a Web content developer must satisfy, should satisfy, or may choose to address a checkpoint. Please see Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 at the URL http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/.
Other sites offer assistance as well. For example, assistance with designing accessible course materials for the Web is available from the Disability Information Systems in Higher Education (DIS in HE) Centre at http://www.disinhe.ac.uk/resources/guides/accessible_courseware/. And the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) hosts "Bobby," a service which will validate your pages according to the WCAG. Since we're talking about content and not strictly the rules of code structures, Bobby will also point out possible accessibility issues that may reside within your page.
Incidentally, RPInfo's main page does meet Priorities One, Two and portions of Three of the WCAG guidelines, and also features valid HTML (4.0 Transitional) and style sheets. For more help with code validation and compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, please see http://www.rpi.edu/About/html.html, or select the "WWW Authoring Resources" link on the main RPInfo page. You may also direct questions on this topic to rpinfo-support@rpi.edu.
In closing, we can say that while all of these Web standard "recommendations" may seem incredibly daunting and overly time-intensive, your users will appreciate the effort you have taken to accommodate various computing environments. And once you become familiar with the issues, you'll simply have new, easily acquired page authoring habits. In the end, a technological institute does well to reflect both an understanding of the technology and a respect for the diversity of its on-line visitors.
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