What needs to be included (minimum) for standards.

[jag5311]

I guess I get confused a little when the term standards is thrown around. For me, I comprehend standards as simply the code being coded correctly so that their are no errors, everything is lowercase, proper tags are used, etc..

Now for others, I think standards might be a summary of having proper accessibility, proper coding, ability to handle multiple electronic devices, etc..

If your site doesn't accomodate all of these, does it make it not "meeting" the standards, or is there a minimum that should be met in regards to this.

For example, my site, www.btkdesigns.com validates to XHTML 1.0, is tableless, and allows for multiple stylesheets, but I don't have it setup for people with disabilities, to handle the different kinds of media, using IMPORT or LINK for the stylesheets. Now I don't want to put my foot in my mouth when touting on my portfolio or the about me part of how I am coding to standards, etc.. What all should be included?

Your thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks
Bryan

[vgarcia]

There are various standards. XHTML validation doesn't make your site accessible, though it may help a bit if you coded smartly. Look for the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). There you'll find your "standards" to validate to accessibility-wise. There are 3 levels of validation to standards, although it's really not an automatic process. You're the judge in determining how well your site validates to accessibility standards, not an automated validator. The reason for this is because there are too many variables that a program won't know about your page, like color contrast, ideal placement of skip links, etc. that can affect how accessible your page is. I recommend starting with reading http://diveintoaccessibility.org/ and getting a feel for what constitutes accessibility. It's up to you to decide how much you want to support. Getting level AAA compliance is pretty tough if not impossible for the average site. I recommend trying to go for level A compliance and working your way up from there if you want your site to be accessible. Every little bit helps.

[jag5311]

what is your personal site considered in terms of accessibility.

and when is your blog going to be up[img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]?

and are your d1, dd, dt tags custom XML?

[John Colby]

IMHO:

If a site validates to standards (especially XHTML 1.0 strict or XHTML 1.1) and follows the W3C recommendations and doesn't use tables for layout then it is a very, very long way towards being accessible. Try it on Bobby or Cynthia and see what they say.

[Hierophant]

You can also read the Web Accessibility Initiative at:
http://www.w3c.org/WAI/

[vgarcia]

what is your personal site considered in terms of accessibility.

and when is your blog going to be up[img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]?

and are your d1, dd, dt tags custom XML?

I'm somewhere between AA and AAA-level accessibility, but that sure didn't come easy. Going for AA is reachable to most people if they're willing to put the work into it, and A-level is the easiest to reach.

Off Topic:

My blog will be up once I reinstall MovableType

And <dl>, <dd>, and <dt> have been in HTML for a long time. They're called definition lists. Read more about them here: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_dl.asp.

[jag5311]

Bobby and Cynthia?

[John Colby]

Bobby - http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/advanced.jsp

Cynthia -
http://www.contentquality.com/

And one you can download - A-Prompt -
http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/

All tools for assessing the accessibility of your pages.

I'm supposing that you're validating your pages for (X)HTML and CSS? For those who don't know:

(X)HTML validators
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/
http://validator.w3.org:8001/

CSS
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/csscheck/

Other contributors may know of others.