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The Importance of Code Validation

Authoring to standards allows developers a level of assurance that what they are posting to the web will be accessible not only to the popular browser of the day, but to any standards compliant user agent in the marketplace.

There has been much discussion in the past about "technical" validation, with basically two camps emerging... the "so what" camp, which believes that as long as it "works" it works; that well formed, valid HTML documents aren't that important as long as what hits the browser is accessible to the end user. The other camp (of which I am unabashedly a member) states that you must get the fundamentals right first, and that includes authoring the markup language correctly and to the declared specification.

It's about Standards

For any large entity to function properly, it must be based upon standards. If you want to build a house in today's modern society, you must use properly engineered, standards based blueprints. This is so that not only will your house "stand the test of time" but will also ensure that the "neighbourhood" will also survive intact and be robust, usable and safe now and into the future. Now you don't actually need blueprints and engineers to build a house and there are undoubtedly numerous houses out there that were just "built", but in the larger picture, without standards and compliance to them you run the risk of ending up with a shanty town.

So too with "the web". As a medium, an entity, a "neighbourhood" we are still in the early days and years of it's evolution... overall it's still very much a shanty town. But if the collective "we" that are the ones who are building and maintaining this medium don't lead the way and start to take standards seriously then we are doomed to a life of shanty towns. And while there will always be those who believe they can just "bang something together" and throw it up on the web, it will look and react like something cobbled together, and will lack credibility... how often do you take a home-made page seriously? So there is a credibility issue at stake over the long run too.

The standards do exist! HTML 4.01 has been a stable robust authoring standard since December of 1999. XHTML 1.0, the most recent standard, has been stable since August of 2002. These standards specify exactly how the authoring (or mark up) language is to be used, and establishes a benchmark, not only for the content authors, but for the software manufacturers who are developing the next generation of user agents (browsers) as well. Authoring to these standards allows content developers a level of assurance that what they are posting to the web will be accessible not only to the popular browser of the day, but to any standards compliant user agent in the marketplace; including but not limited to adaptive technologies used by people with disablities.

Compliance

Today, numerous organizations are giving accessible web design more attention, either because of the legal ramifications of non-compliance (US Section 508, Canada's CLF, etc.), or due to the business case which shows that accessible sites not only attract more customers, but are also Search Engine friendlier.

The W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guide clearly states, "Priority 2 - 3.2 Create documents that validate to published formal grammars.". So yet another reason exists for Code Validation - compliance to the most widely recognized accessibility checklist on the web. For developers, reaching this level of compliance has it's benefits too, the ability to produce web content at this level is a marketable skill.

Code validation is pretty simple... it's black and white, right or wrong. The on-line validators will pick out the mistakes, almost surgically, and tell the developer where those mistakes are (line and character numbers), so that the developer can go back and fix the error. There is very little rocket science or alchemy here... it's a straightforward process which anyone can do regardless of their "design talents" or skills. Why more institutions and organizations don't insist upon this basic compliance is still beyond me.

Conclusion

In the end, it comes down to the usual question: "why stick to standards, if my browser still shows it as I want?" Just because it works in *your browser* is not the point... if you want it to be truly accessible it must "work" in every browser, nay-sayers and scoffers notwithstanding. Code Validation is your easiest, single best bet towards acheiving that goal.

On-line validators

Currently, the WATS.ca team use the following on-line validators in our development and testing:

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