W3C Valid XHTML + CSS Icons

What are these?

Good question. If you see these on a page, it means it passes the W3C validation tests for complying with web and/or CSS standards.

This is a good thing because it means that this page is usable in any modern browser, has no flakey code and shouldn't break at any point in the future.

And I suppose it means I actually know what I'm doing.

The downside is their logos are pretty crappy, so I'm not going to put them on every page.

This site also passes Section 508 testing (which is the US standard for acessibility. As far as I know the UK has no current equivalent test).

No badge for that one though.

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I'm not a web designer, why do I care about CSS?

Good question. There's no need for you to be interested in the technology.

Just the many benefits, including potentially lower costs.

a - sites built using CSS layouts are a lot more SE (Search Engine) friendly. Because the code which controls the structure and appearance of your site isn't in the page code itself, a SE can 'read' your content much more quickly and easily. Much like us, SEs generally prefer to do as little work as possible for the maximum reward.

b - sites load more quickly. Less code, less download time.

c - pages can be updated or substantially changed very quickly. Not just text appearance, but the entire layout and design. Potentially, this flexibility offers substantial cost and time savings. You could change – or implement – colour coding on different sections of your site, for instance. Or change the layout just in one section if that suited the content better.

Accessibility issues, Web Standards and CSS layout are all inter-linked. The theory and technology might not interest you, but the benefits are very real.

Less waffle – just show me.

Okay. Have a look at this page for instance.

It's actually the same page you're reading now (in terms of content), but controlled by a different CSS file. So although the basic layout, buttons, links, colours and text are all different, I haven't touched the actual page itself, just the CSS file.

Which means I could amend every page on the site to match just by changing which CSS file controls them. Using the old table-based methods of building sites, each page would have to be amended individually, potentially hours of work. Which you'd be charged for.

How long did it take to make the changes via CSS? For this quick demo, I set myself a maximum time of 15 minutes. Remember this could be applied to all 30 pages or so of this site in that time.

So if you're looking for a website designer, ask them if they still use tables for layouts. And if so, why? There are better ways to spend your budget.

And you'd build ours with this CSS stuff?

Yes. All Flying Solo sites built from January 2005 are of this type.

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Site complies with W3C guidelines + Section 508/WAI 1.0 Level A accessibility standards.