The advent of technology in our new "Age of the Internet" has had an interesting effect on how we, as a moden society, conduct business and structure our personal lives. Most people will not debate the fact that new systems of information dissemination (e.g., WWW, Instant Messaging, et al.) have increased our overall productivity, personally and fiscally. There are ways, however, that our new technologies have actually hindered our overall progress.
Rightfully and thankfully, absolutely nobody will argue against handicap accessible buildings, or braille menus. Nobody will speak out against standards compliant building construction...
Why, then, do we acquiesce to allowing our forward-facing websites and sales documents, our inward facing portals and manuals to fall below the standards we demand for other "real world" media? Through effective use of standards compliant HTML (XHTML/HTML 4.01), Section 508 compliant design and CSS we can increase the overall viewership of any website, or print document. Higher operating standards are not an impossibility. Following the links below to read about just a few of the areas most modern websites can easily improve upon.