Your music example is a moot point because, the quality of HTML isn’t an opinion. I don’t place normative value on one set of HTML versus another. In other words I don’t “like” or “dis-like” certain blocks of HTML. I am speaking to HTML that is written wrong, that goes against industry standards, and doesn’t adhere to best practices for web development. This is not an opinion of mine this is fact.

Your right large companies are slow and are hard to change. But thats not really the point here. Because there are a lot of really big companies that never have a problem with their HTML at all. Because they get it right the first time.

And yes i am a part of that geeky 0.0000001% that looks at the code. But I want to mention like i did in the comment above that the HTML in question here is seriously impeding their ability to communicate their message to the public. It is seriously impeding their ability to communicate to the 99.99999% of “normal people”.

Ah, well, that does sound somewhat problematic if they’re limiting access to some folks. As an internet marketer/developer/consultant for almost 15 years, I know for a fact that (unfortunately) almost no one plans for ADA recommendations – unless that’s your audience (whether that’s the reason for a screen reader or not). And almost no one seems to care about whether the screen can be
“read” or not.

We recently reworked the code of a large shipping company to move navigation and content around so it is more SEO friendly. It can be a process, but it has certainly helped to counter the falling traffic stats of the big brands around the world.

Since you won’t tell us who it is (and I’m REALLY curious), I’ll take your word for it that they either don’t really care about fixing their site, don’t know it’s a problem or there’s too much red tape to fix it…

That said, if it’s a firm or product you believe in, why not try to contact them and let them know the issues? It can’t hurt and maybe you’ll be the one they’ve been looking for for help. Many times I’ve been able to be the right person at the right time and have gotten good work from jumping in, even when I wasn’t asked.
.-= Mark Peesel´s last blog ..Happy Belated Birthday to the Bar Code! =-.

What if your potential clients refused to do business with you because they didn’t like the music you listened to – just because music was REALLY important to them. One has nothing to do with the other.

I am guessing you’ve never worked for a big company before where changing the color of button can entail a 6 month task force and Legal approval. Ridiculous? Yes. But its also the reality. Throw in legacy systems, multiple owners with competing agendas, and limited resources (your assertion that “the company can afford it” may be way wrong) and you can understand why many good companies have “crappy code”.

I’ll just throw in one more point. I can guarantee you that 99.99999% of any given site’s visitors don’t look at the code, let alone complain about it. Conversely, a significant percentage will complain when the handle falls off their doohickey – and their ain’t any code in the world that can fix that problem.

@Andy Oh, you want to play for points now do you?? Fine, I am game, I will see you on Twitter!

You are right, to an extent. Yes, its obvious that they have figured out a way to build a strong brand despite their crappy code. However, certain aspects of the code is so bad that it is seriously impeding the functionality of the site, for example the vast majority of the code is written in a way that isn’t accessible to people that use screen readers. And, major aspects of their site navigation is completely inaccessible to search engines.

You can’t see the back, but if you do the work right, it uses less thread and the front looks neater too. Weird little thing, your post just reminded me of that.
.-= Leighann Garber´s last blog ..Reconnecting With the Harvest =-.

But hey, I’ll give you a free site audit too!!
.-= Mark Peesel´s last blog ..Happy Belated Birthday to the Bar Code! =-.