Chapter 13 - HTML
13.4.1 HTML Good Practices - How to ensure everyone can get your information
The Web was designed to be a way to share information regardless of
platform and software.
Certain interests see the Web as a commercial arena where there is money to
be made by continually upping the stakes with new (often platform specific)
features, requiring new soft- and hard-ware to get to the content.
The users are an unpredictable lot who just want to get to the content
without a lot of fuss (strangely enough, pretty much what HTML was meant
for).
Granting there are certain things that text cannot do (like the graphics-only geometry
lesson or the Java-powered Visible Human project), there
are ways to compromise and convey most of the content out there relatively
painlessly.
Tips for designers:
- Familiarize yourself with the HTML specs, so that you have a good understanding
of what HTML is most widely supported.
- Validate your pages - that is, use a validator to check your markup. Some software,
such as BBEdit, have built-in HTML validators. There are also many on-line validators
that require no more software than a Web browser. Try
A Kinder, Gentler Validator
or the WebTechs validator (aka the "HALSoft
validator")
- Don't assume that because you created your pages using one browser that they will
look the same on all browsers - they won't! Test your pages with other browsers and
platforms if possible. A good lowest-common-denominator test is to check your pages with
Lynx, a text-only browser. Don't have access to Lynx? Try Lynx-me, a free online service
that will take a URL and display the page as Lynx would see it.
- Make reasonably-sized documents, that is, less than 50K
- Carefully weigh content. Is it really critical? Could it be
represented in a simpler way? Is it helpful or distracting?
- Identify your audience. Is your information critical for users worldwide, or is
it only going to appeal to a tiny group?
-
Provide alternate pages - if you are going to take the time
to do fancy stuff, you can take a little more time to make a text
version. Use your Web server to dynamically detect and redirect browsers to
an appropriate page or provide a simple entry page with
links to plain and fancy versions. (The fancy page is where to put those
'download blah now' blurbs.)
-
Put text alternatives at the top of pages!
-
If you must use frames:
use <noframes> outside of the <frameset> tags - preferably at
the *top* of the page - for critical links and text.
-
Don't count on the following to convey your information
properly. many browsers don't see
these the way you expect they will (or at all) - this is not a comprehensive list.
- centering
- font information (size, colors, etc.)
- graphics (inline or background)
- tables - use <pre> alternate pages
- blinking text
-  
- plug-ins
- frames
- Use pictures sparingly, many folks can't or don't want to look at them,
many folks are paying by the minute for Web access, and wasting
time and bandwidth seems criminal.
- Use alt tags for graphics always, especially when using graphics as links.
- Some browsers don't see alt tags
either, include text in the body for descriptions and links.
put pictures on their own pages, make a link to the
page with a note as to content and size of graphics.
- Use transparent and interlaced gifs to improve download time
Next we'll look at how non-standard HTML fragments the Web, defeats its
original intent of device independence, and keeps users
from getting information.
Copyright © 1996
Pris Sears, All Rights Reserved
Pris Sears
<sears@vt.edu>