Accessibility and validity: Why so confused?

Valid sites are often confused with accessible sites. While a valid site may pass all the automated checks some may not be navigable by keyboard alone or may lose their navigation when a site’s images are disabled. Here at coldpie we understand the difference between valid and accessible, and work hard to ensure that the user is always put first when aiming to achieve both.

Spot the difference

Accessibility and validity are two distinct yet complimentary standards. Accessibility is aimed at end users ensuring that everybody can access the site’s content and functionality with clarity and ease. This should include those who have visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments.

Validity on the other hand is far more relevant to those who build websites helping to ensure any developer or development company can easily understand and work with the code. It also future proofs the site enabling it to continue to function through browser and software upgrades.

Why the confusion?

So why is a site that is considered valid so often confused with being accessible? This is partly down to the two being grouped together under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG (you can read more about the WCAG here). But also, in no small part, because those who design and build websites have become too hung up on passing automated online checks rather than testing for real, live users.

When checking a site’s (X)HTML or CSS is valid most developers will use a tool like the W3C Mark-up Validation Service which provides a simple “yes, you’ve passed” or “no, you haven’t”, and a list of errors by line number. Great, developers can fix any bugs easily and can be rest assured that they have beautiful code.

However, checking a site’s accessibility is far more involved. Again there are the online tools; Total Validator and Cynthia Says are one stop shops for validity, accessibility, spelling errors and even browser screenshots. These are great as a starting point but there is only so much an automated tool can provide. For example, they can’t indicate whether a site is still usable when images or javascript are disabled, or if flash or java plugins are unavailable. Equally they can’t show how navigable a site is using just the keyboard or other assistive technologies. These are all required manual checks that often get skipped.

The real question to ask

Using automated tools is a great and easy way to spot problems with a site’s validity and accessibility but they shouldn’t be relied on as the be all and end all. Manual checks and real user testing are the only foolproof way to ensure a site is accessible to all.

It’s also important not to sweat the small stuff. A site can be fully accessible to all users, including those using assistive technologies, even if a few tags are capitalised or the odd ampersand isn’t encoded correctly.

As the client it’s important to ask your development team not “is my site valid?” but rather “can all my visitors use this site?”

Tags: accessibility, standards, validity

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