- From: Stephane Deschamps <w3c@nota-bene.org>
- Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:26:51 +0200
- To: Karl Dubost <karl@w3.org>
- CC: www-qa@w3.org, public-evangelist@w3.org
<quote who='Karl Dubost' when='10/10/2006 08:55'> > Let's a very simple case a static Web page written in XHTML 1.1 with CSS > instructions. How do we define the good use for this simple case? How do > we "certify" the quality? Some of the things to check: > > - Validity of XHTML 1.1 > - Correct use of mimetype application/xhtml+xml > - Correct use of CSS > - Correct Mimetype for CSS > - Language of stylesheets is declared or not if we do not use style > element or externql CSS but only style attributes. > - HTTP. Are the http headers used appropriately? > - What about the semantics of the elements? Are they accordingly with > what the specification is saying? > - Do we include WCAG checking? > > And then, there is the process, for this only one page, when and how do > we check that the page respects the defined criteria? And then, there is also the practice itself: two CSS designers have each their own way of writing their CSS code, who's to say that one is better than another. Samely, I'm prone to using several H1's on a page, whereas many people feel that it's a betrayal of the spirit of HTML (hierarchical structure seen in a pyramidal mental model) to use more than on H1 per page. Who's to say when this is wrong or right, or simply best, to use one, two or three level-one headings? (these points are made to illustrate the difficulty of certification). > Now, multiply this on a Web site of thousands and/or million of Web > pages and you get a huge machinery which in a context of Web services > would be impossible to manage. If one page fails, does the site loses > its quality label? Which percentage of failure is acceptable? > > It doesn't mean that we have to give up on quality, but that it's not a > label, it's an ongoing process. There are initiatives in these > directions. For example, Laurent Denis, Eli Sloim have worked on a > Quality Framework which is very useful to keep track of your quality > criteria when creating/maintaining a Web site. We have the same problem at the moment in my company with applying the WCAGs. technically, a criteria is not fulfilled if it's not 100% ok. For instance, you may have 100 images on a page, but we in my company say the work is not done if one image has no alt text. Should we say it's 99% good, or should we say it fails the criteria? For lack of time, I can't help more with evangelism and QA, but oh, would I love to. -- Stéphane Deschamps personal: http://www.nota-bene.org/ org: http://www.evolt.org/ french org: http://www.pompage.net/
Received on Monday, 16 October 2006 01:20:05 UTC