On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, Andy Mabbett wrote:
Google finds:
Results 1 - 20 of about 34,000 linking to
http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance
That's only ones which *claim* conformance.
And the first one on the list that I got from google, failed at least
one of the objective tests (don't use deprecated markup), with several
warnings.
Also the W3C HTML validator ruled it invalid, and the CSS checker
ruled its HTML so bad that it refused to check the CSS until the HTML
was fixed.
That itself disqualifies a page for anything more than A-level WAI,
IIRC.
(In this case I used the checker URLs which are built into the
Pederick toolbar - no offence to Nick Kew, who has written some
excellent software for this - I was just too lazy.)
As for my subjective tests, I refuse to believe that an alt text
which says:
Level Triple-A conformance icon, W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 1.0
has really understood the purpose of the alt text. The substantive
information carried by that icon was (even though it wasn't quite
true) was "Conforms to Triple-A W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 1.0", and that would be my nearest proposal for what the
alt text should have been. Rubbing it in to a blind reader that this
is really an image, which they can't see, is totally unnecessary and
discourteous.
And font sizes were specified in px units, and included Verdana.
So, although I certainly have seen much worse web pages, this doesn't
qualify for rating "above the cut".
The second one on the list failed objective tests on two points,
"don't use deprecated markup" and "clearly identify the target of each
link".
It also failed HTML validation (again disqualifying itself for AAA
WAI); the CSS, on the face of it, showed correct syntax, but the
warnings included cases of coloured text on same-coloured background,
which is a WAI failure.
Looking at the alt texts, they fail my subjective analysis, e.g
<img src="images/cfc1.gif" alt="separator" width="50%" height="1">
<br>
OK, on to the next one. This also fails for using deprecated
features. And its choice of alt texts makes its main heading (which,
amazingly, really *is* marked up as <h1rather than the usual <div
class="mainheading">-type nonsense which we so often see these days)
bizarrely read:
HGM2006 Finnish Flag
coming directly after the even more bizarre line:
HUGO Logo Helsinki Harbour
followed soon after by the rather repetitive:
Page maintained by
we***************@hgu.mrc.ac.uk
Valid XHTML 1.0! Accessibility Spacer Valid CSS! Accessibility Spacer
Level Triple-A conformance icon, W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 1.0
and
Accommodation Info Accommodation
Can this webperson ever have seen the results of their misguided
effort in a text-only situation? Bleagh.
Over and above that, their soi-disant XHTML/1.0 contains this:
<style type="text/css">
<!--
@import url(/Styles/hgm2006.css);
-->
</style>
The comment markers mean that a properly-behaved XHTML client agent
should ignore the stylesheet. And what's with this at the very
beginning? -
<!--
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
-->
<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd ">
Strange.
Mind you, the W3C themselves contrived to produce this bizarre link
text:
W3C logo Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) logo
Did you actually find one of those listed I-wanna-be-AAA pages which
did actually pass? I haven't yet.
Quite a number of my own pages pass the objective tests for AAA
accessibility, but I don't brag about it. Some of my pages fail
several objective tests, but they are situations where the WAI 1.0
ckeckpoint said "until user agents...", and I reckon those checkpoints
are now causing more trouble than they are worth, so I deliberately
leave some of them out.
ttfn