About a year ago I made a conscious effort to try to apply every standard and commonly-held rule to my coding. This was mainly to add the ‘Valid XHTML‘ and ‘Valid CSS‘ links at the bottom of my blogs, websites and so on. Whether or not people cared didn’t really come into the equation - I did it because I thought it was the best thing to do in terms of my work.

I’ve even made efforts to make sure I follow the general guidelines for the disabled which is why the BBC article on caught my attention. Why shouldn’t the disabled be able to read and use the web like anyone else, after all?

But what astounded me were the statistics they quoted:

  • 93% failed to provide adequate text descriptions for graphics
  • 73% relied on JavaScript for important functionality
  • 78% used colours with poor contrast, causing issues for those with colour blindness
  • 98% did not follow industry web standards for the programming code
  • 97% did not allow people to alter or resize pages
  • 89% offered poor page navigation
  • 87% used pop-ups causing problems for those using screen magnification software

That is quite staggering! For example, 97% didn’t allow people to alter or resize pages? 93% failed to provide adequate text descriptions for graphics (ALT=”")? I thought that was an industry standard, rather than a choice. And perhaps even worse, something I abhor, 87% uses pop-ups. Shame on you!

The article has something by Mark Gristock, of :

“Accessibility consultants and organisations for the disabled clutch their knowledge of user requirements to them like they are the key to future profits - which indeed they are.

“If they had any interest in raising standards, they would be sharing their findings with the world and opening dialogue with the design and business community about how best to integrate techniques with standard processes,” he said.

I think, Mark, it’s because by keeping their cards close to their chest and remaining the high priests of accessibility, the consultants believe they can command higher prices for their ‘consulting’ services. It is a false belief of course since many of us independent web designers DO know the ’secrets’.

I AM curious however, what sites the survey covered? Were they for example, all government sites? Did they include commercial sites? And if so, were those commercial sites just the large ones?