The Family Guide to Digital Freedom

Online information and services should always be quickly accessible and usable for everybody, no matter which hardware device or software program is used to display them.

Slight formatting differences are acceptable, of course. But designing a website that can be viewed only with one model of browser, no matter which one, would make just as much sense as printing books that can be read with only one brand of glasses. Designing many different versions of the same Web pages, each optimized for a different browser or hardware device, from computers with huge monitors to PDAs, is almost equally pointless: besides being a huge waste of energies, such exercises negate the whole concept of ubiquitous access to information. In spite of these obvious truths, it is still very common to encounter websites with these limits.

This is a Website Done Right!

This website, or any other website pointing to this web page through a “Website Done Right!” link, does its best to avoid these mistakes. A Website Done Right is one that:

• can be used even without technologies which can be implemented only by some monopolist or paying huge royalties
• cleanly separates information from formatting, so the first can be only written once while designers and end users can customize at will their interfaces and terminals, or invent whole new ones
• is fully accessible to people with disabilities
• is hosted on an Internet server which doesn't discriminate among different client programs
• has no excessively restricting linking policies (see below)
• is decently printable, without wasting paper
• has permanent and unique addresses for every page, so users can bookmark and signal them to other users
• has "Contact Us" and "Search in this website" buttons always in full view
• presents each content in its native format: text as plain text and pictures as graphic files, rather than hiding all in pseudo-movies which slow everything down
• makes its best to be quickly found, that is is easily indexable by search engines

This is what is really important. As long as a website satisfies these requirements, it doesn't really matter what software was used to generate or display its content, how expensive it is or what its license is. In any case, the website will be Done Right, that is fully viewable with any browser [viewed with any browser] now and in the future!

Note to webmasters: the misguided banners

There are many websites which are already Done Right, but explain it in the wrong way, that is apparently placing love of technology before end users' needs. They are the Websites which proudly display any combination of these and others incomprehensible slogans, without bothering to explain why:

• "CSS"
• "XHTML"
• "Designed", "Proudly Powered by" or "Running on" software package XYZ

This is wrong, in the sense that, even if you are doing all the Right Things, normal people will never understand nor care what the Webmaster was talking about, or why it is very important. This is, or at least looks like, adopting or advertising technology for the sake of technology, without bothering about people and communication.

How to help all Websites Done Right

It is essential that all Internet users understand, without being intimidated by technical lingo, the real reasons why it's necessary to follow non proprietary standards on websites, and what they would personally and concretely gain if such practices became the norm.

This page is an attempt to help spread this awareness. If you agree with this goal, you are welcome to substitute all the banners like those above with the sentence "This is a Website Done Right" linking directly to this page.

A word about linking policies

Believe it or not, some websites actually demand that you ask for prior permission before linking to some of their pages. Even if this were legally enforceable worldwide, it would be against the interests of the website itself: only people going directly to that website would know of its existence. External links from independent websites also increase search engine ranking. This is why, instead of giving you as proof a link to portals which are managed so smartly, we'll just suggest you to insert the sentence "You may, in principle, link to" (double quotes included) in a search engine and see what happens...

If you happen by chance in any other such site, please do as they say: never tell anybody you were there...

How Is THIS Website Done?

As explained above, there is no unique way to get things right, nor there should be. For this reason, the tools currently used to run this particular Website will be described in a separate page, to be added later.

Last But Not Least: Request For Help

Here at Digifreedom we are perfectly aware that our very own site isn't Done Right just yet. This is only because the website is very new. We do want to have it Done Right as soon as possible. Therefore, any suggestions on how to achieve any of the goals above, or add missing ones, are very welcome.