A resolution for 2010

I joined Project 52, which is a personal challenge geared toward getting fresh content on your website. The goal is to write at least 1 new article per week for 1 year. Because we all know what it‘s like to procrastinate on our content. A website is not just a fresh design that can be uploaded to the web and forgotten about!.

Writing once a week (at least) shouldn’t have to present a serious problem to me, I have a lot of ideas for topics to write about. The problem will be to convert hose ideas into readable and enjoyable posts. This post is the first for my project52 series so please let me know what you like and dislike about my writing style.

Anyways, back to the topic. 2010 is a few hours old and I thought it’d be a good start to give my wishlist for this year. And just to be clear, it’s not a list of things I want other people to do for me, but things I want to achieve myself (with or without help from everyone, of course).

People I want to meet in person

In 2010, I want to have a decent conversation with some of the most inspiring people I know. In real life, face to face. So, I have to find ways to meet them in person.

First of all, I’d like to finally have that talk with Moly Holzschlag, web standards guru extraordinaire. In 2009 I had a decent conversation over e-mail and an even better one over Skype, we Twittered a bit here and there. But 2009 was mainly the year of missed chances -where us meeting up is concerned. First was a date we had scheduled in April in London, where she was to talk at the FOWD conference, and my wife and I were enjoying a city trip together. We were supposed to meet over a genuine English High Tea at a classy hotel, but Molly sprained her ankle and sadly wasn’t able to join us.

Then, in november, Molly was headlining the 2009 Fronteers conference in Amsterdam. As a volunteer helping out at the conference, I was invited to join the speakers at the speakers dinner. And lo and behold, Molly was there too! We finally got to meet face to face. But because of some drama over at Opera (with a company called Opera, there’s bound to be drama, isn’t there?) she just had to sit on my seat next to David Storey and Andreas Bovens (and for the record, there wasn’t any real drama over at Opera, but with a company called Opera, that’s bound to be an exception, right?). So we didn’t get a chance to really speak. But  since the conference was the next two days, and she’d be in Amsterdam for another few days after that, we thought we’d get our chance. But Molly’s back hurt a lot after she tried to lift a laundry basket and epically failed, and she was bedridden for -you’ve guessed correctly- until her flight home. I was on my way to Amsterdam to meet her in her appartment when she cancelled. So that was the third time lucky.

So, in 2010, I want to have that talk with her. She’s an expert, a guru, and an inspirational person, and very nice to boot -I think.

But this wouldn’t be a wishlist if I didn’t set the bar even higher. Having a meaningful conversation with one of the worlds leading standardista’s isn’t enough. I want to meet the Godfathers of Webstandards: Don Jeffrey Zeldman and Don Eric A. Meyer. I haven’t been in contact with them in 2009, so I have nothing to build on. But that’s what challenges are all about, aren’t they?

Books I hope to finish reading

I have a disability. It’s probably a mental one. I can’t just read one book and finish it. There’s always two or three books I’m reading at the same time. Some books I finish, but not all of them. So, my wishlist is about books I’d like to finish in 2010.

Designing with Web Standards, 3rd edition, by Jeffrey Zeldman and Ethan Marcotte. This book explains why any website designer should work with web standards.

The Smashing Book, by various authors. Smashing Magazine became one of the web’s most influential web design and -development magazines, and this book has chapters written by some of the emerging experts.

Developer Evangelism, by Christian Heilmann. Chris Heilmann is Yahoo’s developer evangelist, a gifted speaker and a passionate man about all things web. His book should be overflowing with inspiration for my own web standards evangelism goals (more on those in later posts).

And these aren’t books, but DVD’s, but I’ll add them here anyway: Designing with CSS and Designing Web Accessibility, by For A Beautiful Web’s Andy Clarke. I got ‘em both on DVD.

Skills I’d like to learn

Well, this is where it gets challenging for real. I don’t want to learn these skills, I want to master them, and skip the learning bit. At least, that’s what I think most of the time. I have a new hypothesis tho: that learning stuff is at least half the fun. If you get past the frustrating first bit of being confronted with lack of skills, that is. But these are the skills I’d like to develop in 2010.

For my work as an e-government consultant I need to be more structured and effective, so I’ll focus my professional development on mindmapping, the GTD method and tools, giving effective presentations to large groups of people, and facilitating creative and effective workshops.

I’d also like to learn more about Web Standards, and specifically by applying them myself. So, I’d like to learn about (x)HTML, CSS, the DOM, accessibility and semantics. And then their cutting edge representations, so HTML5, CSS3 and some basic scripting, as Javascript is a whole new territory for me, and not to be conquered in 2010.

Also, I’d like to learn more about web standards evangelism, and how I can bring across my message to a different and relatively new group of people. But, more on that topic in later posts as well.

Events I’d like to attend

Here’s where the wishful thinking kicks in. And probably some experimenting too. The event I’d like to attend will most likely not be sponsored by my employer, thus making it difficult to raise the funds necessary for me to actually go there. But if you look at my goals for 2010, one of the best places to reach them, is by going to a conference or meeting or workshop or something. So that’s a goal I’m adding as well.

I’d love to go to An Event Apart in 2010. There’ll be 4 of these events, but I hear they’re the best there is on web design and development, so I’d love to go to one of them. How, when, I don’t know yet.

I’d also like to go to @media London, Future of Web Design, SxSWi, or any other web design and development conference, but the AEA is at the top of my list.

And I have to mention Fronteers 2010, the excellent conference organized by the Dutch Fronteers society. I hope to play a small part in organizing it this year! So most likely, there’s more on that in future posts too!

Year of the Challenge

So, it’s quite a year that is ahead of me! So I hereby announce that 2010 will be the Year of the Challenge! Lets make it count.

Screenshot of the Child Support Ghana homepage

Out with the old

In the old situation, there were three different places you could find new and out-dated information about the various projects and activities. First there was the Wa Yiri Children’s Home website, which I quickly built using the Mambo content management system. This was 2004-2005, and Mambo has matured a lot since those days. I used Mambo mainly because I needed a system that non-web-savvy people could use and publish content. But this turned out not to be such a good choice. The non-web-savvy people were non-Mambo-savvy people too -or better yet, Mambo wasn’t as user-friendly as it lead us to believe. So the information published on the site quickly became outdated and irrelevant.
In february 2005 my dad went to Ghana to find out if he could settle there -at least for a while, maybe even indefinitely- and make a real change. He wanted a weblog to keep everyone informed of his travels, his journeys, his experiences, and as he settled in more, his projects as well. His weblog was dubbed Under African Skies and became the major source of information about the works of Child Support Ghana. This is chiefly due to the fact that my dad could publish all this information, including photo’s, all by himself (he doesn’t have running water or is connected to a sewer system, but he does have an ADSL broadband internet connection -when there’s power…). And this was made possible by the awesome WordPress blogging platform, which has grown in sheer awesomeness ever since those days. Now the new website is powered by WordPress too.
The third site you could find all kinds of information about the project is the Child Support Ghana Foundation website, the main website. This website should have been maintained by the Board and volunteers of the Child Support Ghana. It was also created by me, and I was seen as the person who should keep it up to date. But, since I’m not the best at keeping sites up to date, this didn’t work very well. So this site contained outdated information as well, and as it is part of the official communications of the Child Support Ghana Foundation, this became a growing problem.
The solution was simple.

In with the new

About a year ago, I decided to merge all three websites into one, using the Child Support Ghana domain, where all information is published by those who know it best. I created an information structure based on the available information and topics, and set out to validate that at some of the visitors and users of the websites. It was tweaked a little, and accepted. I based thenew structure as much on the information that wasn’t available, as on the information that was. Thus, I hoped to create a content strategy for the volunteer-driven site, ensuring the publication of compelling and motivating content.
Te new site caters to three different groups of visitors. First and main, it’s targeted at potential sponsors and donators. These are people who support the projects Child Support Ghana executes in Wa, because they feel connected and want to be involved in small and bigger ways. So, the website needed to provide information about the projects and their merits. More so, it needs to sell the projects to draw people into the site, and make them think “something special is going on here, I’d like to learn more about it!”. And for this kind of third world development work, nothing conveys this better then photo’s of the people Child Support is helping out. So on the homepage, I added a photo carrousel (using JonDesign’s excellent SmoothGallery script) with photo’s of the projects.
I also learned that the second best way to sell the projects is to provide authentic content. This means that we’re not hiding the fact that working in the Upper West Region of Ghana is difficult, and that Child Support Ghana is forced to make difficult (sometimes even life-and-death) decisions. By merging Eric’s weblog into the new site, we’re ensured of hundreds of authentic posts filled with experiences and anecdotes of life in Ghana and the work of Child Support Ghana.
Now that we have the visitors attention, we need to make it easy for them to become involved in Child Support Ghana, and donate funds and/or time and effort. Donating funds is easy using the TipIt service, a quick donation via iDeal and/or creditcard is available on each and every page on the site. Since our main audience is based in The Netherlands and Belgium, iDeal and creditcards basically covers the main means of doing online transactions. If people want to participate in other ways, there’s a whole section on how to support Child Support Ghana.
The other group we’re trying to convince to participate on the site is the potential volunteers. These are good people who want to donate their skills and experience and participate in the projects in Wa. This group is really looking for information on the projects, trying to find what their value to those could be. Also, they’re looking for practical info about the life in Ghana, as well as infom on how to get in touch with the people behind Child Support Ghana to see if going there for 6 months is a viable option. We try to provide the necessary info on the site, but I still feel that’s the one area we don’t have enough information -yet.
The third main group is English-speaking/reading visitors. As the success of Child Support Ghana spreads through the news channels of Ghana and other non-BeNeLux countries, the need to provide quality information in English is growing. More and more people and organizations abroad are supporting Child Support Ghana now, so we created a whole new section just for English content.

The new design

A large part of my time and effort went into the redesign of the site. This is because I’m never really satisfied with the quality of my skills and experience to create a really high-end design, but for this site, I tried pushing my limits. First though, I went looking for inspiration, and was awestruck by the beauty and effectiveness of Rob Goodlatte‘s Wiser Girls theme. WISER is also a third world development project, supporting and running a girls school in Africa. The design of the WISER site is stunning. I definitely didn’t want to copy and steal it, but as you can see, a lot of elements from WISER went into the Child Support Ghana site.
Because I didn’t want to copy it, I had to recreate the design. And to complicate things more, I decided to create the theme using the Carrington Blog theme framework for WordPress, created by Crowd Favorite. This framework would allow me to create a flexible and sustainable theme, which is easy to extend and add new template types to. This would make maintaining the site easier.
And to top it all off, as a self-proclaimed webstandards advocate, I had to bring it all together in standards-compliant, semantic markup and stylesheets. Due to the complexity of the Carrington Blog theme, and trying to recreate a look and feel, I’m sure there are many many opportunities to optimise the code I used. But overall, I’m quite happy with the results!

So, please take a look at the site, read through some of the projects, perhaps even read a few blog posts made by my dad, and let me know what you think of the new site!

Herko supporting Webstandards Blue Beanie Day

Excerpt from the 3rd Annual Blue Beanie Day Event Page:

It’s easy to show your support for web design done right. Beg, borrow, or buy a Blue Beanie (or Blue Toque in Canada) and snap a photo of your mug wearing the blue. (Or get creative with Photoshop). Then on November 30, switch your profile picture in Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, (and any other social network) and post your photo to the Flickr Blue Beanie Day 2009 group.

Want to help with planning the 3rd Annual Blue Beanie Day? Planning a meetup or tweetup in your hometown? Organizing a group photo in your city? You might qualify to win a free copy of Zeldman and Marcotte’s (brand new) Designing With Web Standards 3rd edition. Contact Douglas Vos.

Kevin Cornell makes it even easier for us this year by providing an illustrated blue beanie photoshop file.

So don a blue beanie, spread the word and keep working towards a truly open web.
Some of my collegues also support Webstandards:

Raph dons his blue beanie

Jules also supports webstandards

OWMS Smurf supports anything for a beer

@michellethonen manages to look like a kitten

Standards in da hood! Word.

Euhm... no comment.

A Lean Mean Blue Beanie Machine

Kom ik aan op pagina 6, staat er een vetgedrukt artikel met de kop “Gemeentesite moet drempelvrij“. Nu werk ik bij het project Webrichtlijnen bij ICTU, dus ik dacht gelijk ‘Wat goed! Eindelijk goede gratis publiciteit!‘. Alhoewel, nog niet zo lang geleden is er veel onjuiste persaandacht rondom het onderwerp geweest, waarbij verwarring was ontstaan na een brief van Staatssecretaris Bijleveld (BZK) waarin ze aangaf geen wettelijke plicht op toepassing van de webrichtlijnen te leggen. Geheel in lijn met het beleid (en ons eigen standpunt): de lagere overheden hebben eigen verantwoordeelijkheid, en ze hebben zich op 1 december 2008 gecommiteerd aan realisatie van het Nationaal Uitvoeringsprogramma Dienstverlening en e-overheid, dus een verplichting is er wel -alleen geen wettelijk mandaat. Misschien dat dat misverstand in dit artikel wordt rechtgezet.

Met goede moed begon ik het artikel te lezen.  Maar al gelijk bij de eerste zin gaat het fout.

De verplichte invoering van richtlijnen voor de toegankelijkheid van overheidswebsites voor burgers met een lichamelijke beperking, gaat gemeenten tientallen miljoenen euro’s kosten.

Het gebeurt vaak dat ‘toegankelijkheid’ wordt verengd tot ‘toegankelijkheid voor mensen met een functiebeperking‘ en zelfs tot ‘toegankelijkheid voor visueel gehandicapten’. Uitgangspunt van het overheidsbeleid is echter dat niemand mag worden buitengesloten van de toegang tot online informatie en dienstverlening van de overheid. Dat uitgangspunt omvat niet alleen mensen met een functiebeperking, maar ook gebruikers van allerhande web-enabled apparaten (zoals mobiele telefoons), besturingssystemen (zoals Linux en het Apple besturingssysteem OSX) en browsers (zoals Firefox, Opera en Safari). Om dat doel te bereiken zijn enkel de minimale toegankelijkheidseisen niet toereikend.
De bewering ‘gaat gemeenten tientallen miljoenen euro’s kosten‘ wordt niet onderbouwd en is dus niet verifieerbaar.
Met toepassing van de Webrichtlijnen wordt ingezet op nieuw te bouwen websites, waarbij er vanuit wordt gegaan dat de economische levensduur van een (versie van een) website tussen 3 en 5 jaar ligt. Of het goedkoper of juist duurder is heeft niet alleen betrekking op de fase van bouw van een website. Het gaat over de totale kosten en het rendement op de investering. Het stellen van duidelijke eisen vooraf, in combinatie en er op toezien dat ook daadwerkelijk invulling wordt gegeven aan die eisen is een probaat middel om een project om het project en de projectkosten in de hand te kunnen houden. Het stellen van kwaliteitseisen, wat dat zijn de webrichtlijnen immers, kost geld, maar het niet stellen van dergelijke eisen blijkt vaak uiteindelijk nog meer te kosten. De belangrijkste risico’s die succes in de weg staan zijn het vermogen van opdrachtgevers om adequaat sturing te geven en het gebrek aan kennis en kunde van opdrachtnemers om vooraf overeengekomen afspraken na te komen.

De Volkskrant  haalt vervolgens een gespecialiseerde websitebouwer erbij, ene Donald Hessing van VX Company. Dit verbaasde me, want ik ken inmiddels aardig wat (namen van) webrichtlijnen experts, maar meneer Hessing is nog nooit op mijn radar gesignaleerd. Maar dat zegt wellicht meer over mijn radar dan over meneer Hessing. Dus ik ging direct op onderzoek uit.

VX Company is  een IT dienstverlener:

Dagelijks werken onze IT-professionals aan de ontwikkeling, integratie, testen en het beheer van applicaties en infrastructuren die cruciaal zijn voor de bedrijfsvoering van onze opdrachtgevers. We bestaan sinds 1988, onze standplaats is Baarn en we tellen 275 mensen.
VX Company biedt een breed pakket diensten aan; van full service projecten, detachering tot beheer op basis van een SLA. [bron]

Zij specialiseren zich in Miscrosoft, ORacle en Java applicaties -let op het aantal keren dat de term web in bovenstaande voor is gekomen. Precies: nul keer. Dan kijken we snel naar hun referenties:

Onze referenties

› Agendia (remote beheer)
› Athlon (Unix integratie)
› BCT Guiding Documents (Test consultancy)
› Blauwhoed (remote beheer)
› CFI (migratie Oracle 10g)
› CIV (applicatie integratie)
› Cordares (Java ontwikkeling)
› CvdM (.NET ontwikkeling)
› De Lage Landen (Unix beheer)
› Gemeente Den Haag (.NET ontwikkeling)
› Groothandel (.NET consultancy)
› Imation (Java portaal)
› Interpolis (applicatie integratie)
› Intraffic (Test services)
› Ministerie van Financiën (Oracle ontwikkeling)
› Morgan Stanley (Java consultancy)
› Oasen (Unified Comm.)
› Oasen (migratie Oracle 10g)
› Oasen (Oracle consultancy)
› Organon (migratie Oracle 10g)
› Slokker Bouwgroep (remote beheer)
› Soweto (Java ontwikkeling)
› Staatsloterij (OpenVMS beheer)
› Stichting Woonbedrijf (.NET portaal)
› Stichting Woonbedrijf (mobiele oplossing)
› Technische Unie (.NET portaal)
› Thales Nederland (Charon-VAX)
› UWV (Java ontwikkeling)
› VVAA (applicatie integratie)
› Zorg en Zekerheid (Oracle portaal) [bron]

Ik zie alleen .NET ontwikkeling staan bij gemeente Den Haag, meer referenties op het gebied van gemeentelijke ervaring zie ik zo snel niet. Ook hier kan ik het fout hebben uiteraard! Dan maar kijken of Donald Hessing een parel tussen de knikkers blijkt te zijn:

Donald Hessing is architect en technisch teamleider bij de unit Microsoft .NET System Development van VX Company IT Services BV. [bron]

Mijn ervaring is dat architecten en back-end ontwikkelaars  niet de mensen zijn waarmee we de standaarden oorlog gaan winnen, maar wie weet heb ik het wel fout -het kan, ondanks alle signalen die het tegendeel lijken te roepen.

Zijn LinkedIn profiel geeft echter ook geen zicht op zijn expertise en ervaring met het toepassen van de webrichtlijnen bij gemeenten. Helaas.

Terug naar het artikel.

“De benodigde ingrepen zijn volgens Hessing zo groot dat veel redactiesystemen voor websites aangepast moeten worden. Doordat veel gemeenten hun eigen redactiesysteem hebben, moeten die volgens Hessing afzonderlijk worden aangepakt.”

Het grootste deel van de gemeenten, waterschappen en provincies maakt gebruik van redactiesystemen van een beperkt aantal leveranciers. Er is inderdaad geen standaardoplossing, zoals Hessing stelt, maar evenmin van een enorme diversiteit, zoals wordt gesuggereerd.
En het wordt nog mooier.

“De richtlijnen sluiten het gebruik van veel moderne technieken uit, zoals Flash, dat gebruikt wordt voor het tonen van animaties of video. ‘Als Ik bijvoorbeeld als Defensie een aardige campagne heb op tv en die wil ik een vervolg geven op mijn homepage, kom ik al in de problemen’, zegt Hessing.”

Dit is een bekende fabel. Wie dit stelt diskwalificeert zichzelf als deskundige. Het meest bekende bewijs dat de stelling van Hessing niet waar is, is de oplossing die in het kader van een rijksoverheidsvideoproject is gerealiseerd. De gebruikte videoplayer maakt gebruik van Flash en van verschillende terugvalopties als Flash niet beschikbaar is. ‘Moderne technieken’ (wat dat ook moge zijn; de meeste van die technieken bestaan al jaren…) kunnen wel degelijk worden gebruikt; er worden alleen wel eisen gesteld aan de manier waarop.

“Hessing schat dat de kosten voor de aanpassingen kunnen oplopen tot 10 miljoen euro. ‘Maar ook waterschappen en politiekorpsen moeten aan de slag’, stelt Hessing.”

Het geschatte bedrag zou zomaar kunnen kloppen als geen ter zake deskundige partijen worden ingehuurd om webbouwprojecten uit te voeren. Belangrijke oorzaak daarvan is in de praktijk, dat voor het maken van de
webinterface geen specialisten worden ingezet, de functienaam daarvoor is web front-end developer, maar het erbij gedaan wordt door back-end developers of grafisch vormgevers. Dat het vak van web front-end development als zodanig onvoldoende wordt erkend is een van de oorzaken waarom nog steeds suboptimale websites worden gebouwd.

Tenslotte wordt nog een kamerlid aangehaald, maar daar zal ik hier niets over zeggen

Oerigens zijn de opmerkingen over de teksten van mijn collega Raph de Rooij, hier en daar wat aangevuld met mijn eigen opmerkingen.

Inmiddels hebben andere media het artikel overgenomen: Digitaal Bestuur twitterde vanmorgen over hun artikel “Webrichtlijnen dure grap voor gemeenten“. Inmiddels is de kop aangepast, maar in de URL zie je de originele titel nog.

En ook Communicatie Online neemt het bericht zonder controle over: “Drempelvrije gemeente is kostbaar“. Kennelijk is 10 miljoen niet genoeg om de leden van Communicatie Online (is van Adformatie, onderdeel van Kluwer) te boeien, want de kosten zijn in dat artikel alweer verhoogd naar “tientallen miljoenen euro’s”.

Zo zie je maar hoe makkelijk een snel en makkelijk artikel uit kan lopen tot een onwaarheid die waarheid wordt. Mijn werk is er niet makkelijker op geworden, dit moet ik allemaal weer recht gaan zetten…

Eerder deze week publiceerden verschillende websites (o.a. Webwereld en Digitaal Bestuur ) het bericht dat Bijleveld de webrichtlijnen alleen verplicht wil stellen voor de rijksoverheid. Dit baseerden zij op de zinsnede: “Een wettelijke verplichting voor medeoverheden acht ik op gespannen voet staan met de eigen verantwoordelijkheid van de medeoverheden.” Deze is te vinden in de brief die Bijleveld aan de Tweede Kamer stuurde in antwoord op vragen uit Algemeen Overleg e-overheid van 5 november 2008.

NUP

De staatssecretaris stelt dat het voldoende is dat VNG, IPO, Unie van Waterschappen en Rijk zich in een gezamenlijke verklaring van 1 december 2008 hebben gecommitteerd aan het Nationaal Uitvoeringsprogramma Dienstverlening en e-overheid. Hierin staan de webrichtlijnen onder het kopje e-toegang prominent genoemd: ‘Alle overheidsinstanties zorgen dat nieuwe websites voldoen aan de webrichtlijnen en dat alle bestaande websites worden aangepast aan de webrichtlijnen’. De verplichting is er dus, die is alleen niet wettelijk. Overigens geldt voor rijkswebsites sinds 2006 een ministerraadbesluit, ook geen wet, waarin staat dat zij moeten voldoen aan de webrichtlijnen.

Keurmerk

Bijleveld wil daarnaast het voeren van een keurmerk voor websites van overheden die voldoen aan de webrichtlijnen niet verplicht stellen. “Ik vind het de verantwoordelijkheid van de website eigenaar om te bepalen hoe men laat zien dat men voldoet. (…) De keuze voor een keurmerk ligt primair bij de website-eigenaar. Die bepaalt of er een keurmerk op de website moet komen te staan. Daar ligt dan ook de afweging voor de eventuele kosten die daarmee gemoeid zijn.”
Uiteraard wordt wel gemeten en gepubliceerd hoe overheidswebsites het doen: in de WebrichtlijnenMonitor van Overheid.nl wordt van alle overheidsorganisaties bijgehouden of en in hoeverre ze voldoen aan de richtlijnen.
De brief van de staatssecretaris is te vinden op de website van BZK.
Op de NUP-website zijn de verklaring van 1 december en de volledige tekst van het NUP te vinden.

The World Wide Web Consortium announced yesterday that it has formally adopted the next version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0)  as an official recommendatio. This is a big step towards eWCAG 2 becoming a web standard. The creation of the WCAG 2.0 specification has been a long and arduous process, but the W3C promised to show a result by the end of this year. And so they have.

11 December 2008 — Today W3C announces a new standard that will help Web designers and developers create sites that better meet the needs of users with disabilities and older users. Drawing on extensive experience and community feedback, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 improve upon W3C’s groundbreaking initial standard for accessible Web content. [source:W3C  press release]

The W3C hails WCAG 2.0 as the “Standard that Defines Accessibility for Next Generation Web“. the impact of WCAG 2.0 is big, on websites that need to conform to accessibility standards like governement and educaion websites, and for quality frameworks such as the Dutch Web Guidelines -where I work. W3C has listed a number of documents in their press release explaining the impact on various aspects such as design and changes from WCAG 1.0.

W3C validators need your money!

In other W3C news, Molly Holzschlag -the well known and respected web standards guru- posted a call for community support for the much used W3C validator services. Apparently, the W3C’s validator services cost so much in infrastructure and bandwidth, tha this is too much of a strain on the W3C budget. So they launched the Validator Donation and Sponsorship Campaign. Molly explains:

It works like this:

• Donor: A donor is anyone interested in donating money to the cause. A micropayment of 1.00 USD if the validator “saves your day” can be very helpful!
• Sponsor: A sponsor is a company or organization that donates to the W3C
• Community Fundraising: There are two badges available at the W3C that link to the fundraising page. If you support the validator, encourage others by placing a badge on your site and blogging about the topic
• Time Not Money: If you cannot or do not wish to donate money, your time is as or even more valuable. There are opportunities to help the W3C maintain and grow validation services.

So if you’re a regular user of the validator services, please help out and show your support!

There are internationally recognized agreements for creating web sites, known as 125 quality requirements standards warrants a significantly better website. The Netherlands government has assembled these international standards in a quality model called the Web Guidelines. This quality model comprises 125 quality requirements for the benefit of better websites.
The Webguidelines aren’t new, they have been around for four years now. Before dec. 1 2008 however, only corporate websites of the national government were forced to conform to the guidelines. This changed drastically: from now on, any new government site needs to conform, and by the end of 2010, all existing sites need to conform as well.

This means that we have two years to make the entire Dutch government’s Internet presence accessible. It is a powerful signal about the importance of accessibility, as well as a huge challenge to implement.

It seems I have my work cut out for me.