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fraudulent claims

valid HTML buttons

Many Sites are now sporting valid W3C (X)HTML/ CSS buttons—even though their source code is invalid, or the Validator is unable to process the page because of a missing DOCTYPE declaration. Others are linking to it without including the referrer in the URL. This, of course, requires the visitor to submit the URL manually. I once came across a Site where the URL was pointing to someone else's domain. This is fraudulent, deceptive, and just_plain_dumb. It could even land you (or your client) in jail.

While honest mistakes can happen while editing a valid Web page—like forgetting to close off a tag somewhere (causing the software to throw up a two mile-long error report), the missing DTD trick is purposefully done to hide the Validator's scolding from anyone who goes to this page. A DTD is an essential part of every valid Web page—and necessary for validation purposes. If you're using these buttons and linking them to the service, you obviously know how it works. When multiple errors are not caused from a cascade (just bad syntax), it's obvious that the author does not know how to write valid (X)HTML.

Sending the Validator a URL that points to a page outside your own domain is copyright infringement, which is a serious crime. You're displaying someone else's source code and claiming it to be your own—even if you did not actually steal something from the Site.

If, after your best efforts, your pages won't validate, for heaven's sake, don't claim that they do. There are plenty of free tutorial Sites you can learn from, and forums where you can ask a knowledgeable designer or programmer how to do this or that. If the project was due yesterday, contact me for a consultation.

honest mistakes

There may be circumstances where several people are administering a Site... and messing up the original code. Valid Web pages must be handled with care and re-checked after any changes have been made. In XHTML, for example, all tags and attributes *must* be typed lower case, and all attribute values must be quoted. Someone else opening the document for editing may not realize this. An unencoded ampersand (&) in a link will cause errors too. If you're accustomed to copying and pasting URLs, it's easy to forget such things. I've done this once or twice myself!

Designers should not place these buttons on their clients' Sites if regular maintenance was not outlined in their contract. Simply opening and resaving an XHTML document containing displayed angle brackets in a WYSIWYG editor (Frontpage, Dreamweaver etc.) can render it completely unreadable. Encoded character entities are converted, and when viewed in a browser, they render as open HTML tags! Valid Sites can also get messed up by opening and resaving pages in MS Word. Be sure and tell your clients this.

avoid getting conned

If a valid and accessible Website is important to your company's image (and it should be), choosing a designer who is up to the task may not be as easy as it seems. Before hiring someone for the job, test different Sites with the W3C Validator. This requires no knowledge of HTML (unless, of course, you're trying to debug a page)! If the Site has a clickable W3C button, make sure the referring URLs match. If it links to the Validator, but does not show any results, copy and paste (or type) the URL into the form box, then click the submit button. The software will report whether it is valid or not. If the page does not pass validation, look at the error report. One or two errors is acceptable, and probably happened while editing. The same error repeated again and again—or no report at all (because no DTD was detected) is not good. Take your business elsewhere. A designer's own Website is a direct reflection of their skill level. If their Site is a disaster, guaranteed, yours will be too.

One obvious way to spot a Website that does not conform to Web Standards is to look for the colored browser scrollbar. This is an illegal property that can only be seen in Internet Explorer 5+ when in "quirks" or "bugs" mode, and does not show up at all when a valid DTD is present.¹. The scrollbar is part of the user interface—leave it alone!

While these services were created for designers for the purpose of checking their own work, the W3C does encourage us to offer user-validation. Therefore, I don't see the harm in writing this expose (apart from the hate-mail I'm sure to receive).

Lets hope that sheds a little light on the subject. "The proof is in the pudding"... or in the source code, as the case may be. Web design, like architecture, is both an art and a science. There's plenty of room for creativity, but the structural markup should comply with these rules of good practice called "Web Standards". In some countries, it is the law.

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Footnotes
 
1. I recently learned of a hack that makes colored scrollbars show up in (IE) Strict mode. Apparently you *can* have a valid DTD and see them. The HTML may validate, but the CSS *won't*. Designers who care about Web Standards and accessibility should not do this.

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