Legal Issues in Web Site Design (was Pixel sizes for web pages)

[Karl M. Bunday]

Barbara, thanks for opening this exceptionally controversial thread
about whether to design Web pages for 800 by 600 monitors or for some
other size.

The various answers to your question posted to the WEB4LIB list ran
the whole gamut about why one assumed size of monitor or another is
better looking, or NOT to be assumed. I try to keep my own coding
HTML-standards-compliant, which means I don't assume any size of
monitor, or even use of a monitor at all. Rather, I try to gussy up
pages (a little) with CSS1 style sheets, and test my own pages at
every expansion or contraction of my browser window that can fit on my
1024 by 768 pixel monitor. I can tell a lot of other Web pages,
worldwide, are designed for smaller-size monitors, because they sure
look ugly when I maximize my browser window [grin].

But I wanted to draw on my background as a lawyer to mention what
could be the LEGAL issue here. Even if the pages are designed entirely
for internal use of an organization, and thus are not really World
Wide Web pages at all, but strictly speaking only intranet pages, they
may be subject to federal or state regulations pertaining to disabled
user accessibility. Current World Wide Consortium recommendations for
disabled user accessibility can be found at

http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505

I don't know how likely it would be that your organization would be
sued if it didn't follow those guidelines, which include a subpage of
specific techniques for making Web pages accessible. But the
publication of these guidelines makes an "industry standard" that is
thus difficult for any organization to ignore without risking exposure
to legal liability. Such is the regulatory environment in which Web
pages are composed today in the United States.

An on-line resource for testing the coding of Web pages is the Bobby
service of CAST, an organization dedicated to using technology to help
people with disabilities,

http://www.cast.org/bobby/

Anyone can submit any Web page they like to Bobby. CAST's Bobby page
does a full HTML validation of a Web page, and also reports on the
size of the page and all associated graphics in bytes, with an
estimate of typical downloading time. Bobby also does something
more--it does automated testing of all possible aspects of the World
Wide Web's new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which explain how
to make a Web site accessible to persons with disabilities, including
blind users.

I hope this is helpful to you and other members of library Web site
committees in navigating among the competing claims made for different
design standards for Web sites.

Karl M. Bunday  "pray for us" 2 Thessalonians 3:1
P.O. Box 674, Panchiao 220, TAIWAN
http://learninfreedom.org