Malarkey has just posted a fine summery of the pitfall of the various “badges” that currently litter a lot of “standards compliant” websites. You know the ones – they point to the various validators.

A few pitfalls are identified –

  1. They’re pointless if your site doesn’t quite validate for whatever reason (which is subjective with the accessibility validators anyway)
  2. They offer the Average Joe absolutely no explanation as to what they’re about. Instead, they just plonk them in a highly confusing, jargon-filled site.

He then offers a far better solution – link to an internal page that explains what the buttons mean. That way, you can still claim your site validates while actually informing people what it means.

It’s a solution I agree with – expect to see it in use here shortly.