HTML checklist: check your HTML Articles

We use this document for checking our results after any HTML cutting. I hope that it'll help for new and experienced developers.

Structure and Visualization

  • Do not use <font> element.
  • Move arrangement attributes (align, valign, width, height) to CSS.
  • Do not use tables except showing table data. Using tables for visual formatting is acceptable in complex situations only. Max table nesting can not be great than 3.
  • Move attribute "background" to CSS.
  • Design of input fields and buttons must be written as class in CSS.
  • Style table must be written as external file and linked using <link>
  • All images related to design (not content) move to block with style {background: transparent url("gif") no-repeat;}

HTML code

  • If table cell contains only image with width and height, then don't use these attributes for cell.
  • Use minimum cols and rows for tables.
  • All <image> elements must have "width" and "height" attributes.
  • All <image> elements, which are not links, don't have "border" attribute.
  • All attributes values must be placed in double quotes.
  • All tags and attributes names must be in low case.

CSS code

  • Unique elements must have "id" attribute, which is used for style. Repeated elements must use classes.
  • Determine Links style through styles of (td {}, td a {}, td a:hover {}). a:hover must redefine only changed atttributes.
  • Determine background color for <body>
  • Split declarations to groups (fonts, tables, text blocks, divs)
  • Determine geometrical dimensions in percents or pixels.
  • All colors values must be as short as possible and in high case (#FFF instead of #ffffff).
  • All tags and attributes names must be in low case.
  • All margins and indents must be defined for all browsers.
  • All classes and identifiers must be named logically with one naming convention.

Structure

  • Use title, description and keywords in header.
  • All elements with closing tags must have it (ideally, use XHTML 1.0 Transitional/Strict).
  • Use alt attribute for <image>. If image don't have semantic meaning, alt must be empty.
  • Use comments before main blocks.
  • Use standard tags for creating text structure (<h1>-<h4>, <p>, <ul>, <il>, <li> and so one).
  • Vertical and Horizontal menus must be defined using <li>.
  • Don't use <b> and <i>. Use <strong> and <em>.
  • Blocks must be placed in document in the descending order of importance. Blocks location can be defined using CSS.


You can discuss and improve this document at http://www.htmlchecklist.com/

Vadim Nareyko, CEO of CalidStyle ( http://calidstyle.com/ )

Recent article: HTML Articles
The truth is that people with disabilities should be able to benefit from the same tools as everyone else. And I suppose that Google's purpose is to merge its Accessible Web Search into the standard Web search one day. More and more webtrepreneurs understand the importance of valid codes and accessibility, but till the day comes when the Web will run on smooth paths, we still have a long time to wait. In the meanwhile SEOs will introduce a new SEO service in their menu: HTML validation. I confess, I practice what I preach since 2004. It's my understanding of "web optimization." I also try to address the main accessibility issues on each site I work on, and make each and every page pass the automatic Cynthia validation.

Google's guidelines on accessibility (still under development) will probably not be as strict as those of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), but they'll still make a difference for the impaired users.