HTML Best Practices

The HTML Best Practices are designed to give web developers the markup techniques they need to make web resources functionally accessible to people with disabilities and comply with the Illinois Web Accessibility Standards, Section 508 Information Technology Accessibility Standards and the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 accessibility guidelines. The best practices development are based on the following principles:

• Benefits to people with disabilities
• Benefits to everybody
• Benefits to web developers
• Support for automated testing

Moving Toward Accessible Design

The accessible repair approach commonly taken to improve the accessibility of web resources often results in web resources becoming more "technically accessible" but still remaining functionally unusable by many people with disabilities. The Best Practices avoid this problem by focusing on the functional requirements that improve access to all users, including people with disabilities. They are inspired by the needs of people with disabilities but are designed to give all users more options and control when accessing web resources and support the interoperability concepts of the web. In accessible design approach, less assumptions are made about what technologies will be used to access a web resource and emphesis is placed on separating content from styling and creating sematcially meaningful markup. This provides all users with more options to use of a broader range of technologies and provide users with the ability to restyle information for their own needs, including people with disabilities. The use of web standards also benefits developers since they can...