W3C and a bunch of liars

W3C = WorldWideWeb Consortium

Tim Berners-Lee, inventer of the World Wide Web, has served as the director of W3C since its inception in 1994. Was it really so recent as 1989 that the World Wide Web was started? I remember that year. It seems so weird to have something so seminal to have been developed within my lifetime. Other generations have been able to mark time with significant world events such as wars and assassinations. For my generation, we luckily don’t have much to mark time by. Sometimes we talk about where we were when we heard that Kurt Cobain or Princess Di had died. Other than that, it’s been fairly (thankfully) quiet.

But the significance of the invention of computers and the internet are certainly notable. I always think about this when I see kids who are so comfortable on computers. My generation had to deal with learning both how to use the metric system and how to use computers when both were just beginning. We had to deal with the growing pains of technology and learning from teachers who were new at this stuff themselves. The end result was confusion.

I suppose that’s why the W3C was started…to combat confusion through the creation of standards and guidelines. However, when anything like that is started, you have to wonder if the point is inclusion or exclusion. One of the W3C’s stated goals is “web for everyone”. Really? I have to wonder how many people can understand and successfully follow the W3C’s 90 standards and guidelines. To me, it seems that the more hoops a group wants you to jump through, the more they want you to fail. That may be a pessimistic view, but it’s how I feel. Maybe I’m just in a mood because I found a nail, and a leak, in my tire.

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) focuses on accessibility for people with disabilities. For this initiative, a disability can include visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. This, I suppose, works towards W3C’s goal of web accessibility for everyone, which is very nice and politically correct. W3C’s opinion is that these accessibility guidelines will also benefit completely able folk who have different used needs, preferences, and “situations” (more specifically, technology and equipment), which can affect their ability to access and use the internet. I think that they mean that the easier a website is to use, the easier it is to be used.

One of the “situations” that might affect users’ ability to use the internet is basic intelligence and/or gullibility. Because info that is on the internet is mostly unedited and unchecked, any person with the technology and some know-how can put out anything they want. Anyone can do it. And the problem is that we, the users, have little way to tell the fact from the fiction.

In some ways, the use of Alt tags can help combat this problem (as well as the inclusive function they can serve for people who don’t have powerful connections…Alt tags can let those users know what a photo is before it loads, or if it can’t be loaded at all). A few years ago, I almost fell victim to an internet scam. I received a phone call saying that I had won a trip to Florida. They gave me the URL, where I could check out my prize. The hotel looked amazing in the photo. But for some reason, while I was looking at the site, I let my mouse hover over the photo. The cursor let me know that the photo which the company was pretending to be their hotel in Florida, was actually a resort in the Mediterrannean. The clever crooks hadn’t even bothered to change the Alt tag. Needless to say, I didn’t take advantage of that prize trip.

And that’s just another reason why Alt tags are handy.