Im currently working on a project for a local council to make there site Accessible and Validate.
Now as with most developers im working with W3C's HTML validate and WebXact from watchfire for Accessibility. Now the site is very large and as such a lot of the old content is still HTML 4.01 Trans, but is validates fine and also gets AA accessibility. Now we have just run a SiteMore.com check on part of the development site and it has come back kicking and screaming at us as we are using WIDTH and HEIGHT on <table>'s and ALIGN on <img />'s Now I know these attributes are now redundant by W3C and were are advised not too use them in future projects, but they also state they will carry on being supported for backwards compatibility. Is sitemore.com correct in saying that we fail AA? as we have these attributes? Even though there all relative measurements? They state this is the only way to be AA and that also we should not use 4.01 Trans but should use Strict. Now I agree, if we had the time to sort out all the old static content we would go though and make it all XHTML 1.0 but sadly we don't have time so were going through the guidelines and getting it Valid and to AA standards. The other issues with this is that they have only just brought this into place right at the start of reports by SOCITIM (government report thingy!) and they use Sitemore to check the councils websites. My argue is that they cant state were invalid and don't pass AA as they are being to strict to the guidelines. Also they stated that we should move to Strict XHTML and use inline styles, which I know is invalid. But what you lot think? Sorry for my long winded rant, just weve been working on this none stop for the last 10days to get it sorted in time and now they move the goal posts, guess its like the FA over ruling FIFA :S Many Thanks Mark Harwood Phunky.co.uk / Xhtmlandcss.co.uk / Zinkmedia.co.uk / Currently out of contract ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
