It’s Blue Beanie Day on the Web and we’ve all joined the fray by donning our indigo toques and updating our avatars. But what does it all mean?
Advocacy without action is meaningless.
The purpose of Blue Beanie Day is to raise awareness and adoption of Web Standards. We all updated our Twitter avatars and placed the azul cap on our Websites to show support, but how many of us verified (or even pushed for) standards compliance on the projects we are working on right now? Is your site valid HTML and CSS? Is it Section 508 or WCAG compliant? (before you chastise me, I know my site isn’t perfect, but I’m working on it.)
What have you done today to promote the adoption of Wed standards? What have you done last week, last month? What will you do tomorrow? Mr. Zeldman’s zealotry for these standards is no-doubt admirable, but without the vociferous, tenacious, and intelligent efforts of the entire community we risk being reduced to a meager crowd of blue headed geeks preaching “end of the world” on the street corner, barely attracting the eye of an uninterested passer-by.
We must clearly articulate the value of Web standards to the CEO, the marketing team, the novice designer, and most of all, the common man. Without widespread adoption across the entire food chain, a standard can never be truly that. It’s our job to evangelize with more than our code. To quote Dan Wieden, “Just do it”.
Know the standards. Validate your work. Get involved.
Never. Stop. Improving.
