BBC websites

Theres been a load of new bbc websites latley, all to do with on demand tv. The thing is they are really badly made, I mean have a look at the page source for this one

http://www.tupeople.com/_home/
[I see 90 validation errors, including no doctype] theres even some passwords and stuff in their. Also notice all the tables!

Even the BBC 1 page has over 40 errors!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
link the validate

Is there a reason for this?

You would think the BBC would do better woudn't you? Just goes to show you can get a page rank of 8 just by getting in bound links, quality of code has nothing to do with it.

It would be a major job to fix them.... Also, think how many ordianry people would goto w3 and validate the BBC's site? Not very many. The website does its job and it would probubly be more trouble than its worth fixing them.

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Marc
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Kind of have to disagree with you Marc, I don't think the fact that ordinary people don't check the validation is really relevant. The BBC are big on accessibility with their website, so they should have proper validated code.

They probubly should, but in a real life situation, thier website is too big to make it all validate. Although they are now creating websites with divs like this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/, which makes me think there heading in the right direction!

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Marc
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No website it too big to validate.

Validation should be part of the design process, not something you do at the end. If you never write invalid code "just for now", then you never need to fix it Write valid code from the start, and you have no problem.

Tools such as the HTML Tidy add-on for Firefox check your page's code in the background, giving an immediate, constant indication of whether it's valid. This lets you spot errors as soon as they occur.

I hardly ever run a page through the W3C validator, because I have the same syntax checker built into my browser (HTML Tidy).

Sending 10,000 pages individually through the W3C validator would be pretty arduous, but there's no need. You just have to look at the page in Firefox to discover whether it's valid.

At least they've got a doctype on the Dragons Den one, unlike some of their other pages (there's definitely no excuse for not having one of those!), although it is a transitional one...

Anyway, as long as they're heading in the right direction, then I'll say no more

The BBC 1 channel is the main channel, the BBC flagship service if you will. BBC 1 will have cost most people in Britain tens of thousands of pounds each by the end of their lifetime. I expect the website for the main channel to be valid. If its not valid then its not accessible. If its not accessible, then its discriminating. There's laws on that now. I think for such a big company (especially one that we are forced to pay for) should get things like this right, especially as it is seen a leader in innovation and interactivity. I mean 90 errors on a page? A monkey on a keyboard wouldn't make that many. Having no doc type is just stupid, and I don't care how the site is built, it wouldn't take long to fix. The code is just lazy, There's no excuse.

If you think its that easy, why dont you join the BBC coding team and validate it, voodoochili? Also if i remember correctly, your blog didnt even validate?

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Marc
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Ha Ha. You have a good memory. My worthless wordpress blog doesnt need to validate. Its personal, it doesnt cost you money and it didnt cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to build. Also I dont claim to be a world market leader in interactivity.

Why dont you join Wordpress and fix it?

Partly because i dont want to. Also, you dont pay for the website, anyone can access it. By my understanding the site is a free, you pay for the TELEVISION. Mind you, i dont pay for it my parents do

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Marc
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No but voodoochilli has a point...we pay for the television BUT that money will go to the BBC...not just to broadcastTV but to supply online video and news etc.

I agree that their site should validate, it might be a big job but BBC have the money to sort this out. They could probably pay each one of their employee's to do 4 pages and have it all done! If the most/one of the most popular and most visited websites on the net doesn't validate its not seeting good examples to everyone.

If BBC don't validate then why should I, how important can it be? (rhetorical question, I know the answer, but this is a valid question from someone just getting into web design)

I think voodoo has got a good point there and also so does Mike. Fraid I don't agree with you on this one Marc.

Mike

Still, it might be a good idea for you, guys, to offer them your validation services, I'm not kidding really...

Fair enough, Mike. Although, the bbc uses that you pay to pay thier employees (and the boss), i think your forgetting that.

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Marc
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Well you will pay for it in a few years. You will be spending a lot on it, and you will notice it going out of your bank every month. You will notice that the amount increa\ses every year, at a higher rate than inflation.

A percentage of the licence fee does go directly to the website, currently 49p each month for each of the 60 million people in England - thats a big budget.

p.s I am still sorry I upset teenagers on my blog. I went on your site, and I really like it. Clean, simple and effective. I think black and orange always work well togeether. You do have a 404 on blog.php by the way, just in case you didnt notice.

I know a web designer that works for the BBC, maybe I could mention it to her

I know, its under construction .

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Marc
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Yea but i think your being a bit naive there...the BBC don't just scrape through on a tight budget enough to pay thier employees and create a website and broadcast...they make $#*% loads of money!

They are a MASSIVE coorporation and could easily shell out a million quid here and there to sort out some usability and validation problems on their website!

Then again same goes with Amazon...amazon and usability really don't mix!

I attended a lecture given by a guy who was blind...he showed us how his screen reader works on various websites. Some you could really understand easily and navigation was easy for him, Amazon was awful! it took about twenty minutes to read through the main navigation!

he had downloaded some amazon pages to his PC and recoded it himself for accessibility, he played this one to us and it was perfect - an example that these pages are not hard or difficult to fix - these large companies are just to lazy to fix them.

Was extremely interesting lecture and especially interesting that it was given by someone who eneds the accessibility to be built into the sites.

Mike

I understand what your saying. Although every buisness is in it to make money, and that is what the bbc and other TV companies are good at. If you are in buisness not to make money, you are not in the right mind. Please bear in mind im not talking about non-profit organisations or charitys here.

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Marc
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You should put a placeholder page, as people wont know its under construction.