are accessibility badges necessary?

[rhsunderground]

i was pointed to this blog entry - http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/wearing_badges_is_not_enough.html - which talks about whether badges serve the right purpose. what are your thoughts?

[Webnauts]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) badges have specific policies associated with their use.
For example pages bearing this logo http://www.webnauts.net/images/WAI-AAA.gif indicate a claim of conformance by the page author or content provider to conformance level Triple-A of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, including all Priority 1, Priority 2, and Priority 3 checkpoints defined in the Guidelines. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Conformance to these Guidelines will help make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and will benefit all users.

Read more here:
1. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/logo-usage-20000308.html
2. http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance

[Ben Rogers]

of course conformance to standards is a necessity, but what do the badges accomplish? nothing of use. they're there to brag, really. simple as that as far as i'm concerned.

[Charles]

But bragging, in and of itself, is a good thing.

[Webnauts]

Ben I definetely don't need badges on my web site, while I am most convienced about the quality of my work as others might can tell.

I though use them with the intention to give W3C credits and to promote them and their highly appreciated work/standards they develop.

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by Charles
But bragging, in and of itself, is a good thing. i like to think of it as a neutral thing - if you're just proud of your work, all right, but its still just bragging. Originally posted by Webnauts
Ben I definetely don't need badges on my web site, while I am most convienced about the quality of my work as others might can tell.

I though use them with the intention to give W3C credits and to promote them and their highly appreciated work/standards they develop. i'm not trying to put you down for having them... but anyone who clicks them and reads the contents of linked pages most likely is already aware.

[MstrBob]

It depends. When it comes to code validity, such as HTML and CSS, I leave links to the validators as a handy method of always being able to insure that my pages are valid. It keeps me on top of things. But when it comes down to saying, I'm WAI AAA conformant, that's something I'll mention, if I mention, on a specific page, not plastered on to my site like a "It's my Birthday!" sticker.

[rhsunderground]

Originally posted by MstrBob
But when it comes down to saying, I'm WAI AAA conformant, that's something I'll mention, if I mention, on a specific page, not plastered on to my site like a "It's my Birthday!" sticker. i have it at the bottom of my page, in the same text as all of the rest of my links

[Robert Wellock]

Quite the contrary those who click upon the WAI Icons most likely don't know much about accessibility.

If you know about WAI it's unlikely you click upon the icons (since they all should lead to the W3C site as stated in the terms) it's more for those who don't know or would like to read further.

[Webnauts]

Originally posted by Robert Wellock
Quite the contrary those who click upon the WAI Icons most likely don't know much about accessibility.

If you know about WAI it's unlikely you click upon the icons (since they all should lead to the W3C site as stated in the terms) it's more for those who don't know or would like to read further.

Thanks Robert! :)

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by MstrBob
It depends. When it comes to code validity, such as HTML and CSS, I leave links to the validators as a handy method of always being able to insure that my pages are valid. It keeps me on top of things. But when it comes down to saying, I'm WAI AAA conformant, that's something I'll mention, if I mention, on a specific page, not plastered on to my site like a "It's my Birthday!" sticker. having an 'accessibility' page seems like a good idea to me- in human readable terms, letting people know the hows and whys of your site's accessibility. as for the validation buttons, my mind hasn't been changed. ctrl+shift+v, webdev toolbar>validation>validate css Originally posted by Robert Wellock
Quite the contrary those who click upon the WAI Icons most likely don't know much about accessibility.

If you know about WAI it's unlikely you click upon the icons (since they all should lead to the W3C site as stated in the terms) it's more for those who don't know or would like to read further. i understand what you're saying, but i think them being used like that is only applicable on webdev sites, and still only a select few will be actually saying 'hm, i wonder what this is- i'll just read all of this purely out of curiosity.'

[Webnauts]

Thanks for the flowers everyboby. :)

I made up my mind:

For my business, promoting accessibility is a major issue.
Therefore, I do not believe that the badges are redudant, even if they are not useful.

Therefore, I can hope that everyone would make the effort to make their web sites accessible, even without addind the badges on their web sites/pages!