Standards from the Start
Posted on Wednesday May 24th, 2006
When redesigning a site, many designers and clients will opt for this new paradigm in layout, the standard-based, sometimes table-less design. They may want some level of accessibility compliance or search engine optimization, or both. It can seem like a monumental task when you review the content that must be included, URLs that must remain intact, and other factors that have more relevance to the client's needs on the at first glance than site layout. However, this large task can be minimized into a relatively painless consideration if considered from the beginning of a redesign.
Properly used, HTML and CSS lend themselves to accessbility automatically. A site using reasonably semantic markup provides all the hooks necessary for a full CSS layout. It also tends to keep the content to markup ratio higher than a site using non-semantic markup. This allows the screen readers to read content in the intended manner, and search engines to comprehend the content more easily.
Observing the current information architecture and planning a site map out in advance can save you more time than you may imagine. With the help of URL re-writes or other tools you can preserve the structure of the old content (and thus the search engine placement) without completely ruining whatever plans you'd like to lay out for the new content
If a site has accessbility requirements, it is good to know from day one. Important content appearing inside images, essential functionality or navigation being provided by Javascript, or other mishaps with no accessible fallback can be avoided if the end goals are made clear fom the start. I have worked with clients who request search engine optimization on a site designed by someone else. More than half of that work usually just involves re-coding the site using semantic markup! The proof is in the SERP.
A designer may try to produce a site, then go back and validate it, optimize it, or make it accessible afterwards. I think that is the wrong approach, and it undermines the purpose for which these tools and standards exist. As an afterthought they are simply technical or marketing buzzwords. But used as a development tool they become the enabling factor for your site's success.