Care about standards? No, not exactly…

Recently, it seems like I’m writing a lot about web standards from an unusual perspective (for me). Rather than evangelizing techniques such as CSS and Web Standards, I’m trying to give every argument a fair discussion. I want to evangelize thinking. This is the result of a notable shift in thought: I’ve been moving in a slightly different direction in my way of approaching web development principles. I believe it’s a more sophisticated way of thinking, but I could be wrong….

On that subject, Jeff Croft came out with an interesting opinion piece today on differentiating between “standards” and “web standards”. It’s interesting, and definitely worth reading. There’s one particular comment in it, however, which particularly got me thinking:

[…] I’ll say this emphatically: I don’t care about standards. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Read more: Care about standards? No, not exactly…

Pseudo-Accessibility: Reinventing the Wheel

In my last post, Accessibility and Client Expectations, a major point was on the practice of implementing accessibility as a site “add-on,” rather than developing a web site from the ground up with accessibility in mind. Some of the features which are implemented in this manner fall into a gross category I’m inclined to describe as “pseudo-accessibility.”

In general, pseudo-accessible features are those which:

  • Solve the symptom, not the problem.
  • Create additional accessibility problems in their implementation
  • Reinvent the wheel by duplicating browser functionality

Read more: Pseudo-Accessibility: Reinventing the Wheel

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