Hi Nic,
good rant.
valid points.
if someone wants to put their unholy neck on the line and say "I'm
compliant" then good for them. They need then to be braced for the
subsequent onslaught of "did you know" comments from actual professionals
who work in that space.
Its like any compliance statement.
Look at motorcycle helmets, the SNELL standards are uniform in testing
procedure across the world. Subsequently the stamp can only be put on
through the product having gone through actual testing, otherwise they can
actually be prosecuted.
The CE stamp that you see on everything from PC's to kids toys, does
actually mean something too, but in actual fact, there is a difference
between actual compliance (as tested by the authority) and self proclaimed
compliance or compatability. Additionally the standards for CE are not
exactly clear nor concise, and not necessarily relevant to many products.
But slapping the CE stamp on the product helps stem consumer fear of a
products quality.
Similarly, the WAI etc... stamps that are slapped upon many sites, I
believe are put there largely as a gimmick of pride, or marketting, or just
plain ignorance of the actual standards.
In many cases I would genuinely believe (wanting to think that I'm not a
cynical as I actually am) that most people who put that on their site
either:
1. were actually compliant at one stage of the sites life, but through poor
management practices, has since degraded or,
2. are ill informed about the standards, through poor resourcing /
education / training and or resources to effectively complete the job. (see
most american and australian government websites) This is of course not to
say that they don't strive to fix the problems, but in many cases the
supporting structures are not that supportinve towards actually achieving
what is needed to get qualified compliance with the standards.
so what do we do?
wear bike helmets if they are snell certified, don't buy kids toys, and if
you need compliance in order to wake up in the morning, don't go on the
internet.
or,
edumacate as many people in the field as possible about the realities of
it, and keep posting stuff to this community.
This is a cool thread Nic, keen to see where it goes.
Ben Winter-Giles
Design & Technology Team
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| Subject: [WSG] Claiming compliance when a site doesn't' actually
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I'd be interested to know what this group's take is on a practice I seem to
find more and more.
You go to a site, and it proudly claims xhtml/css/wai compliance. You do a
quick check, and discover that the code wouldn't pass xhtml 1.0 compliance,
let alone the 1.1 strict they claim! Their css is a mess. And as far as
WAI compliance, the number of sites claiming AAA that don't even meet A
level is mind boggling. Then, there are those sites who actually
technically meet some level of WCAG, but in such a way the site is in fact
unusable...
This upsets me on several levels. It can only impact negatively on those
of
us who actually do make sites that comply. If non-compliant sites claim
compliance, it dilutes the effect of claiming compliance for those who do
comply. But it also reflects on our competence. If so many people who
claim compliance have apparently not a clue of what they are doing, how can
a potential client be sure that the next guy (you, me) claiming they know
what they are doing actually does?
Perhaps this is a pointless rant, but it's seriously getting under my skin
this week.
Thanks for any feedback on this :)
Nic
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