Back in the day when web designers built their website by hand, it was very easy to make a mistake in the coding. However, now web designers are lucky to have the many tools that they have that no longer makes HTML and CSS validation such an issue that it used to be.

If you don’t know what HTML and CSS validation is, you have probably noticed it when it didn’t take place. If you have been to a website that looks odd, where items are falling off the side of the page, strange coding appears, or there are missing graphics, that is probably because no one took the time to validate their code.

When you build a website, you need to use HTML and CSS validation for the following reasons:

1. Not everyone uses Internet Explorer. Some people are still using old versions of Netscape and AOL, while others are using Firefox or Safari. You need to build your website so that it appears properly on all of these browsers.

2. Not everyone is on a PC! Some people are viewing your website from an Apple, others from their phone or even their television. Your website needs to appear properly there, too.

3. You may find that you need your website to be ADA-compliant. This means that readers for the visually-impaired will be reading the text. So, if you are going to utilize a lot of graphics, there needs to be “alt” tags in place so that the reader can “read” them, too.

By using a quality HTML or CSS validation program, many of which are found online for free, you can make sure that your website is fully accessible to everyone, no matter what kind of computer they are using, or even whether they can actually see the screen or not.