WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Valid HTML improves accessibility

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Aug 16, 2000 6:13PM

There are a lot of key elements that go into the design of accessible Web
pages. One important element is to make sure that the HTML (the markup that
the Web page is written in) is actually valid markup. Most Web authoring
tools (an authoring tool is any software that helps you create a Web page,
such as Front Page, Dreamweaver, Home Page, etc.) do not automatically
create valid HTML. Many of them allow you to go into the code and alter it
so that it is valid HTML, but most of them use shortcuts that aren't always
the best for accessibility. The older authoring tools are especially bad at
this. Newer ones are somewhat better. None of them are perfect, however.
To make sure that your pages use valid HTML, I would recommend checking them
with the W3C's HTML validator. This can be found at http://validator.w3.org.
This tool can validate both HTML and XHTML pages. It also has a link to a
tool which validates your style sheets if you use them.
There are other validators as well. Check out these links for more
information:
http://www.webaim.org/tutorials/validation
http://www.webaim.org/php3/php.exe/searchability/index.php3?viewCat=37

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
Web Accessibility in Mind (www.webaim.org)
at the Center for Persons with Disabilities (www.cpd.usu.edu)
at Utah State University (www.usu.edu)
___
Is your Website a lawsuit waiting to happen?
Disability access is a requirement for the Web sites of organizations that
receive any kind of US Federal funding. Find out how to make your site
disability-friendly at www.webaim.org.