Today (April 9th) is CSS Naked Day – a chance for web developers to show just how accessible their sites are by stripping them of their CSS and seeing how they hold up. With proper use of HTML, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure and no reliance on purely visual elements, any site should be able to lose its styling without making its content inaccessible.
Although no official mention of the day has appeared on the site which started it all, it seems a lot of people have made sure to observe the tradition again this year.
This is a fun idea, fully in line with the reasons for creating CSS in the first place. While most designers are attracted by the extra presentational capabilities, saving HTML from becoming a presentational language was probably a more important motivation for most people who participated in the beginning.
Håkon Wium Lie
Just as with last year, I’ve stripped the CSS from my own site and it looks just fine (albeit a little dull!). I know of various other web developers who have done the same, and it’s an excellent visual way of checking that you’re up to scratch in terms of web standards.
Website without CSS
For anyone interested in this technique, the excellent Web Developer toolbar (FireFox add-on) has a handy option to turn off CSS styles.
Web Developer toolbar
Tags: accessibility, CSS, web standards