Apple Store web standards savvy — 28 Sep 2007

This might be old news to some, but I was pleasantly surprised this morning to discover that the Apple Store had been redesigned to become a big step closer to web standard compliance and has improved its accessibility.

Apple's websites have always been visually rich and pleasant to look at and use. Their latests versions have set the bar very high for corporate sites that still believe that web standard compliance and accessibility prevent a visually rich and interactive user experience. Take a look at the source code to see good examples of semantic markup. The layout is grid based and everything is perfectly aligned. I was happy to see that the new design was deployed on all stores, not just the US one. There are still glitches that prevent validation, and accessibility can be improved, but I am sure they will be ironed out in due time.

I can't imagine what it must take to revamp a public site so visible. It's quite an achievement. It certainly gives designers and developers worldwide arguments and an excellent example in their pursuit of web standards and accessibility advocacy.

Interestingly, the Store includes the Dojo Toolkit while the corporate site uses Prototype javascript framework and Scriptaculous libraries.

Well done!