Site HTML and Accessiblity Standards Policy

We run this site with the following policy: That users want good information, clearly presented, and easy to access. This is why you will find no unneccessary multi-media, Flash rollovers, sparkly animations, etc.

Pages are written using the best available practice in HTML standards, and with respect for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

This page looks different to others on this site. It uses a CSS Stylesheet privided by W3C called 'oldStyle'. This is one of about 8 'Core Sampler preview stylesheets' offered by W3C. Such standard-styles may become popular.

HTML Standards

New pages we write are in xhtml, many pages are still in HTML4.01. There are older pages on the site, and we update them to xhtml when we have time to do so.

We use xhtml and HTML4.01 Transitional, rather than Strict. This is because we use HTML techniques which allow the pages to work in as many browsers as possible. Many of these cross-browser techniques are illegal according to the 'Strict' Recommendations.

For example, the words Transitional and Strict in the sentence above are marked up using the < em > < /em > container element, rather than using Cascading Style Sheets. CSS would be the preferred, modern way to do it, but <em> works in all browsers.

WCAG Guidelines

We aim for WCAG AA Compliance. This is tempered by the recognition that our target market is Motorcyclists - by definition able-bodied and fully-sighted.

We do recognize that the site will be used by others with differing abilities, perhaps friends or relatives of bikers. We use whatever means are appropriate to make our pages accessible to all - without degrading the page look-and-feel for the majority of our readership.

As an example, our main listings pages currently fail WCAG Priority 2 Automatic checks for the following reason:

To modify the page to pass this particular check would require text similar to this:

We would argue that repeating the use of [map] is not a problem. The intention of the link is clear - in context. The text is laid out in a table, but even the most elementary text-to-speech reader scans this in the correct left-to-right manner, and the meaning of the [map] link is clear. (We have tested this using a couple of commonly available readers.)

Having said that, we have included the use of title="map to Joe's Wiring and Electric Shop" in the A HREF - in the expectation that intelligent automated readers will use this to give additional information to users for whom the intention of the link may still be unclear. It has the additional benefit that fully-sighted readers have a mouseOver tooltip indicating the activity of each link. This is nothing to do with Disability-Compliance, this is just 'a good thing' in page design. Indeed, a lot of what is currently being discussed as WCAG Compliance is just what many of us have always used as 'good page design elements'.

As another example, there are a significant number of disabled motorcyclists. They may have motor-impairment, but ride using a Trike, Quad, or some control modification to a solo motorcycle. However, their impairment may be such that they cannot easily manipulate a mouse. These users will find that where we use a form on a page, TABINDEX will step through the form correctly. This is a useful feature for motor-impaired users. But - we check that tab-order steps through entry fields correctly because it is a useful alternative page access mechanism for all users.

Naturally, we are happy to discuss any of this. If you have a problem accessing the site, or if you have a view on our Policy, please contact us at this email address mike@motorcycle.co.uk.

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Incidentally, this page passes all WCAG P1,2,3 Automatic and Manual checks for AAA compliance - except the one about 'repeated map links', because to show you the example, we had to put it on the page!