Beaconfire Consulting just launched the second website I’ve worked with them on. HearUsNow.org is run by Consumer’s Union (the folks who publish Consumer Reports) and is a clearinghouse of consumer information on telecommunications. My job was to take the designs and code templates to meet XHTML 1.0, CSS 2, and Section 508 Web Accessibility standards. Then I turn them over to developers who use my templates to build out the site. Then, out the other end, comes an odd mish-mash of good code and weird, random crap that the people who built the Content Management System decided was important or, more likely, that they just couldn’t figure out how to get rid of.
I’ve been working on this one for a couple of months. My first job for the good people at Beaconfire was ParentsAction.org which is a non-profit run by Rob Reiner and his wife to provide information fo parents. There’s some really interesting info on the site. I actually found myself reading the content as I was putting it in. That hasn’t happend much in my professional career as a Web-Guy.
Here’s what I want: a Content Management System cabable of actually rendering valid code. Not surprisingly, the worst offender I’ve come across is the Microsoft CMS. This piece of crap has such a willful disregard (along with the company that builds it) for Internet Accessibility and standards compliance that they should be prosecuted. But then again, what harm can a little prosecution do to Microsoft?