WCAG, HTML, and CSS: Maybe the Standards Need a Break

Published on Jun 15, 2007 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under development (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.

The web development community worries about the development of WCAG, HTML, and CSS (about the latter since recently).

These worries and the respective criticism look valid and legitimate—there are problems with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (hopefully being addressed by the WCAG Working Group, alternatively addressed by the WCAG Samurai), there’s demand for an update to HTML (formerly addressed by the WHATWG, currently addressed by the new HTML Working Group), and there appears to be need for a more sustained development of the CSS standard.

Let’s all contribute to the needed improvements, yet we’ll probably benefit from a break soon after the release of WCAG 2.0, HTML 5, and CSS 3.

Why? By then (2010?), there will be need for a look back and a thorough revision of these standards, mainly for quality control (unfortunately, the W3C process doesn’t even allow to fix typos once a spec is stable) and implementation. For years we’ve been in such a hurry to update and extend standards that we don’t seem to notice that our complaints about missing or wrong implementations might be caused by exactly that rush. (Current problems and criticism may make this sound ironic, but it’s not.)

Sure, there’s a strong need to fix the specs, but we’ll benefit from a time where we explicitly want just two things: high quality and rest. A “spec freeze” would also allow us to shift some attention to learning and teaching standards.

Someday, let’s take a break.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for small and large enterprises, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)