A new web standards body, GAWDS: The Guild of Accessible Web Designers has been launched to promote accessibility and standards in web design. Founder Jim Byrne says:
Accessibility is now shorthand for the adoption of core standards that benefit every user of the Internet and impact the bottom line of every business. GAWDS intends to promote these standards to instill in Web designers the high level of competence and professionalism required to unlock the full potential of the Internet
And we’ve been accepted as a member — although we did need to polish up the code on this website and on Mentro Lluest a little before we were allowed in. That’s encouraging, really. GAWDS seems serious about standards and accessibility.
The Web Standards Project (WaSP) welcomes GAWDS in an item that came just after an entry about Joe Clark and Craig Saila’s review of the accessibility of Canadian political websites. They say the sites they tested:
- do not meet Web standards, meaning their underlying code is grammatically incorrect
- probably work correctly in only one browser, Internet Explorer for Windows, even though not all Canadians use that browser
- usually don’t bother identifying the language in which they are written (English or French)
- are somewhat inaccessible to people with disabilities
which kinda resonates with my experience of websites in the UK. The article goes on to say,
it’s tempting to wonder how seriously one should view the campaigns of those who don’t attempt to meet the standards set by the government they wish to represent
Yes indeed.
