W3C compliance means your site is likely to work, either because you built it that way or because you had the good judgment to employ a qualified custom designer to do it. You are probably Findable, for the same reason. But what about Usable? Is your site Usable? There is a lot to be considered when it comes to Usability. Let’s look at one or two of them together.

They taught us way back when, sometime in school, I can’t remember exactly, that some of the important things to remember in reporting events were Who, What, and Where. Where is one of the standards of usability testing. Where has the user been; Where are they now; and Where do they go from here? These things matter, and are in the control of the designer. Clean design, and good working links, insure success here.

What in this case stands for “what does the user want to do”. If they want to buy something, you or your designer need to have made sure they can find that something, and that the working parts of the site really do work, like say the shopping cart, or wish-list, or whatever you have decided to use. What and Where work together when you have invited them to add a great gross of your widgets to their wish list, and then they need to get back to shopping for the wadgets they also need.

The Who in Usability means: who is your visitor? What language do they speak, what date and time format are they used to, and in what currency are they calculating the tab? Your designer can take care of that for you. The W3C has considered the date and time format matter, and more is on the way. To me, 05.04.1949 means May 4th, 1964, and Happy Birthday to me! To you, it may mean 5 April, 1964, and some other event entirely. Your coder can fix that.

So it is important to stick to good design, or to hire good designers. The W3C, though they seem to be sticklers, are so for a reason. Compliant code works. W3C compliant sites work, and that, coupled with the skills and attention to detail of a good designer, will work to make Findability and Usability work for you and your customers.