When talking about accessibility in web design, most people will think about validating code or adding support for disabilities to their site. The thing is that being accessible is something that should be in all areas of the site. From the copy to the design and via the coding skeleton, accessibility should be at the forefront of all decisions made.

There are a fair few types of sites that the a-list designers seem to avoid and galleries seem blind to. These often include sites such as online shops (getting less though), but the worst missing hole is the ever so common directory site. It could be a shopping directory, a link directory, resource directory, advertising directory - there is just a lack of any type of directory. The odd one might be shown but in general the online directory is the dark side of the web.

Pas 78, the document on standards for the web is now available free. Slightly annoying to those of us that paid for it - but on the upside more will read now. Get your Pas 78 on by downloading now.

If you work in the web and you have yet to hear about web standards, you have probably been hiding under a tabled rock for a good few years. It is agreed that in principle using web standards is a good thing. So, nothing new. Thing is, there are many issues that come up when you follow the only doing standards rules. The problem also comes to play if you are dealing with a client that wants to use third party linking or content that simply is so from validation it is in a different orbit. It might be deep links from affiliate sites or just some other including that they want.

Building on from the earlier post webrevolution, I felt I needed to post the areas where currently the web world is failing people starting up in web design. It has become a real bug of mine regarding the quality of many tutorial based websites regarding web design. I do not deny that there are some great resources out there, however still there is a huge majority that come up high in search engines that really are not practicing good standards and practice in web design. A great many of these are also seriously hypocritical in the sense they preach such greatness as accessibility when make it impossible for the user to get anywhere apart from a web brick wall.

In the beginning there was the internet. Quickly this became a means of transferring information to people and a teaching tool. The word spread like a viral badger campaign and soon lots of text based websites were available. The number of these resources became so big that companies sprung up just to handle searches on this wealth of information. All was good and slowly people added more content like putting an image on their now called web page. Information was shared for free and everyone was allowed to grow together as each webby helped another. Over time and through a rather dodgy rotating gif black and red period, websites evolved to something pretty and pleasing to the eye in some cases. Designers pricked up their ears to this new medium which now was not just for the geeky unix bods.