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Learn about web accessibility, usability, semantic HTML, XHTML, and CSS2 in the context of CHM portals. Discover how to make your site accessible to all users and devices, and improve its usability and presentation.
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Modern Web standards in CHM portals • Mădălina Sauca • Finsiel Romania Copenhagen, 6 June 2006
Web Accessibility • The site information must be accessible to: • all users, including users with physical, mental or technical disabilities • all types of devices (different browsers, PDAs and mobile phones, TVs, speech synthesizers, Braille interpreters, TVs, printers, etc.) • other web sites, web applications and search engines • WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) – guidelines discussing accessibility issues and providing accessible design solutions • There are three levels of conformance: • WAI A Conformance Level "A“ (used in CHM for administration functionalities) • WAI AA Conformance Level "Double-A" (used in CHM for end users interface) • WAI AAA Conformance Level "Triple-A“; the most strict
Accessibility - Further reading • http://diveintoaccessibility.org/ • http://www.w3.org/WAI/ • Full WAI standards description for all the three levels of conformance: • http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/complete.html • http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/complete.html#cklist(check list)
Usability • Ensuring a “Easy to use” (or “User friendly”) interface supposes to: • improve the website navigation(ex: search, sitemap) • improve the user orientation within the site (ex: bread crumb trail) • improve user control and flexibility(ex: language option)
Usability - Further reading • http://www.useit.com/ • http://www.usableweb.com/
Semantic HTML • “Semantic Web” refers to Machine-Understandable information • Semantically correct HTML is important - thinking on how applications (Google for instance) interpret it, more than how users view it • Use the proper HTML tags for certain types of information • use of <h1>,<h2> tags for headings, use of <table> only for tabular information and NOT for the layout design... etc.
Semantic HTML - Further reading • http://www.ermanz.govt.nz/news-events/archives/presentations/semantichtml.html • http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
XHTML (eXtensible Hyper Text Markup Language) • XHTML is a family of document types that reproduce and extend HTML4 and are XML-based • XHTML documents are XML conforming (is designed to work with XML-based user agents and can be validated using XML tools) • Can utilize applications (e.g. scripts and applets) that rely on • either the HTML Document Object Model • or the XML Document Object Model
XHTML - Further reading • http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/ • Validation service • http://validator.w3.org/
CSS2 • The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used for the graphical presentation of website layouts. Target! Complete separation of the structure from presentation – the CSS should have absolute control over the appearance. CSS level 2 • is used in two major directions: for the elements positioning and for their stylization • builds on CSS1 and, with very few exceptions, all valid CSS1 style sheets are valid CSS2 style sheets • allows information to be presented differently according to the target media (screen, printer, handheld/mobile etc.) and to the client’s settings (alternative layouts, text browsers, etc.)
CSS2 - Further reading • http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/ • http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/ • http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ • Validation service: • http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/