guidelines for English-Language Web sites

by Mark Swofford, Government Information Office

Last revised: July 21, 2005

These guidelines are not meant as a replacement for the Web-accessibility work of the RDEC but as a supplement to it.

The examples in this document are not meant to single out any Web designers or agencies for criticism. I provide the examples only to help illustrate the situation at hand. The problems described here are common ones.

In reading through these guidelines, please keep in mind several basic principles:

Before you begin

In order to test Web pages yourself, you'll need to download a few tools, if you don't have them already. First, download and install the Opera Web browser. It is also available in a traditional Chinese version; but this tends to be older than the English version. An alternate way to get a traditional Chinese version of Opera would be to download the most recent English edition and then install the traditional Chinese language pack.

Once Opera is running, go to View --> Toolbars --> Customize. The click on the "Panels" tab and make sure the "Info" box is checked. (If you're using Opera 7 instead of the most recent version, go to View --> Panels, and make sure the "Info" panel is checked.)

Next, download and install Mozilla's Firefox Web browser. (This is also available in a traditional Chinese version.) Using Firefox, download and install the Web developer extension. If the location has changed, search for this on the Firefox extensions page.

OK, let's get started.

Contents

Text issues

Good use of the "title" tag

The text in the title tag is what appears in the very top left corner of the screen when you visit a Web page. (The title of this Web page, for example, is "guidelines for Web sites".)

Why is this important?

This is more than important; it is crucial. Appropriate title text is among the most important factors in determining search-engine placement, as well as helping visitors know your site is the one they want to view.

Use words that will be useful. Also, try to avoid "extra" words, such as articles.

Examples

In many cases, the word "Taiwan" would be an appropriate addition.

Further reading

Real text instead of images of text

Why is this important?

This is crucial. Computers and search engines work from text, not pictures.

There are several reasons for this, including

For example, here is a gif of the word "Taiwan":

Search engines, however, have no way of knowing what this image is, which means that search engines won't know the word "Taiwan" appears on the Web page, which means they won't return your Web page if someone includes the word "Taiwan" in the search phrase. Obviously, that's not something you want to happen.

Here's the same image, but this time the HTML includes alt="Taiwan", which lets search engines and those (such as the blind) who use non-traditional Web browsers to know what the image is of. Taiwan

But in almost all cases, it is better simply to use real text:

Taiwan

In a very few cases (such as, perhaps, with logos), images with proper alt text are acceptable. But if you have more than one of these on a Web page, you probably have too many.

How do I check?

In Opera 8, turn off images with Shift + I.

In Opera 7, turn off images with the button that looks like a camera, which is located near the top right of the screen.

how to turn off images in Opera

In Firefox, Images --> Hide Images.

how to turn off images in Firefox

Romanization correctly spelled

In some ways this is a particularly difficult issue. The central government has officially adopted the Tongyong Pinyin romanization system for Mandarin but it has allowed individual areas to make their own decisions. Accordingly, Taipei has adopted Hanyu Pinyin, which is the system now used almost everywhere in the world and which is strongly preferred by most foreigners. (Some other places have also adopted Hanyu Pinyin; but their implementation of that system has been much less thorough than that of Taipei.)

Keeping in mind that your Web site is meant to convey useful information to your readers, including Hanyu Pinyin romanization, especially for any location within Taipei, would help them match your information with the romanization system foreigners know best and the signs they will likely see.

Regardless of which romanization system you use, all words written in it should be spelled correctly.

How do I check?

Romanization correctly styled

Why is this important?

Some people seem to think AddIng ExTra CaPiTaLiZaTion makes reading easier. They are wrong. There is no more reason to write "NanJing" than there is to write "BerLin" or "PaRis". This is a counterproductive and downright annoying practice, and it needs to be stamped out.

Also, remember to write words as words, not as frag ment ed syll a bles.

Examples

Further reading

No other unnecessary use of capital letters

Why is this important?

PUTTING EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS MAKES READING MORE DIFFICULT. IT'S ALSO MAKES IT LOOK LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING.

Likewise, People Tend to Use Too Much Capitalization at the Beginning of Words. Don't Do This. Do this. Most words do not need to be -- and therefore should not be -- capitalized. If you're not sure whether to capitalize something, usually the correct thing to do is leave it in lower case. For example, titles are not capitalized unless they come before a name; thus, "The ambassador presented a medal to President Chen Shui-bian", but "Chen Shui-bian is president [not "President"] of the nation." There is no lack of respect in this; it is standard practice in English.

Also, please note that "fax" is an ordinary word. "FAX" is wrong.

Correct English

Why is this important?

This should be obvious. But in case it's not, here are two points:

How do I check?

Hire a copy editor (改稿編輯) -- a real copy editor. Having a native speaker of English look at your text is most definitely not enough; you need a trained specialist. Note: If you try to hire one person to be a copy editor and a translator and an editor, you'll probably end up with someone who isn't really good at any of those jobs.

The author of this document is a .

Documents in HTML rather than PDF or Word format

Why is this important?

PDF files are appropriate on rare occasions, such as for forms that are intended for printing. Microsoft Word files, however, are almost never appropriate on Web sites; they should be converted to HTML. (But be careful in the conversion. Microsoft Word's HTML converter puts out terrible code that would need to be cleaned up considerably before being allowed on a Web site.)

Further reading

Proper use of header tags (e.g. <h1>, <h2>, <h3>)

Why is this important?

This is crucial for high rankings in search engines. Putting something in <p> tags and then making it larger artificially is not the same thing as using <h1> tags. Leave paragraph tags for body text, and make sure each paragraph begins with a new <p> tag, not with a line break (<br>). Also, proper use of tags is important for those with disabilities and the correct use of CSS.

How do I check?

Look in the HTML. Each page should have one <h1> tag near the top of the page. Most pages should also have <h2> and <h3> tags. <h4> may also be found, but rarely <h5> or <h6>.

Proper use of lists

Why is this important?

Lists should appear in the coding as real lists, not as lines separated by line breaks (<br> tags).

How do I check?

Look in the HTML.

Further reading

Use of "Taiwan" on the home page

Why is this important?

This helps people who are searching the Web find your site. Also, the government keeps changing its mind on precisely what to call the country, so it's best to have all of the following: "Taiwan", "Republic of China", and "ROC".

Use of "Republic of China" on the home page

Why is this important?

See comments above on "Taiwan".

Important: Having an image of this phrase without real text isn't good enough.

Use of "ROC" on the home page

Why is this important?

See comments above on "Taiwan".

Note: use "the ROC", not "the R.O.C." But if this follows "Taiwan", then use "Taiwan, ROC" (without the the).

Important: Having an image of this term without real text isn't good enough.

Address and telephone number on the home page

Why is this important?

E-mail is not the world's only form of communication.

Correct format for telephone and fax numbers

Why is this important?

Using standard formats makes it easier for people to correctly read telephone numbers. Note the use of parentheses and hyphen, and how many digits are before and after the hyphens.

Right:

Telephone numbers in areas that still use seven- rather than eight-digit phone numbers should appear as follows:

Remember that "fax" is a normal word, so don't write "FAX".

A common error on Web pages is the use of a Chinese-style colon after "fax". Make certain you use the Western colon and other Western punctuation.

Western date format

Why is this important?

Almost no one outside Taiwan has any idea that 2005 is also year "94" to people here. Never use 民國年 (Mínguó nián) on an English-language Web page. Also, using numbers for months can result in ambiguity. For example, many visitors won't know whether "04/06/2005" is April 6 or June 4. So use "April 6, 2005" or "6 April 2005".

Another reason to always use Western dates is what might be called the Y1C problem. Remember Y2K? This is similar.

How do I check?

Just look. The Web site of the Office of the President, for example, has an automated date script that on June 21, 2005, produced "Jun 21, 105". Horrible!

Examples

Why is this important?

Even in the early days of the Web, when confusing background images, ugly text colors, and terrible design were almost universal, nearly everyone recognized that blinking text is extremely annoying. In fact, this technique is so annoying that many visitors will refuse to read any page with blinking text.

No scrolling text

Why is this important?

Scrolling text is annoying, hard to read, and frequently depends upon non-standard code to function.

No Chinese punctuation or related marks in non-Chinese pages

Why is this important?

Don't use the Chinese character for a punctuation mark when English has a more widely supported mark. Chinese punctuation marks are not designed to fit alphabetic text; thus, these characters look unbalanced and ugly when placed in the context of an English-language Web page. Moreover, the use of any Chinese anything could cause Web pages to render incorrectly for many visitors to your site. Keep in mind that most of them do not have Chinese operating systems or have their computers set up to read Chinese text. After all, they're looking at the English section of your Web site, so give them real English.

Examples

How do I check?

Just look -- but do check carefully, because these are easy to overlook. The most commonly mistaken punctuation mark is the colon (:), so pay particular attention to these.

No files or folders labeled in Chinese characters instead of the Roman alphabet

Why is this important?

Any file or folder name that includes Chinese characters is a file or folder that most foreigners will not be able to type out for themselves or send as a link to others through e-mail. Nor could the link name be printed in most Western printed sources. This is another good reason to learn correct romanization.

Although Chinese characters must never be used anywhere in the URL of an English-language Web page, they could be acceptable in some cases for pages in Mandarin and other Chinese languages. But note that differences between traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters may also prevent some people from easily being able to type out the URL of a Web page. Thus, even for pages in Chinese, it's often best to stick with English or romanized Mandarin for names of directories and files.

Examples

Home page free of outdated information

Why is this important?

Having outdated information on your home page makes it look like you pay no attention to your Web site. (And if you don't pay attention to your own site, how can you expect others to?) It's much better to have no news on your home page than to have news about events that ended months or even years ago.

Copyright notices are often several years out of date.

Links

Prominent link to the English-language site from the Chinese one

Why is this important?

Most people who want an English-language site can't read Chinese and won't be willing to spend much time looking for the link that gives them what they want to see.

Also, it should go without saying that the link should say "English" instead of "英文" (which most foreigners won't be able to read). But I've seen this astonishing mistake on several prominent Web sites.

Example

Prominent link to the Chinese site from the English-language one

New pages open within the same window

Why is this important?

Opening new windows is against the spirit of the Web -- and it's annoying, too, especially because it breaks the back button.

I'm amazed how common URLs are in link names. Using them is absurd and against the notion of how the Web is supposed to work. Link on the name, not the Web address.

Examples

Wrong:

Wrong:

Right:

Proper link style? (Link on names, not "click here," etc.)

How do I check?

Just look for yourself.

Wrong:

"To enter the contest, fill out the application form. You can do that by clicking here."

Right:

"To enter the contest, fill out the application form."

Further reading

When link text is in English, it leads to an English-language page

Why is this important?

Again, this should be obvious. But many sites don't follow this simple principle. For example, a prominent link on the MOFA Web site to that site's FAQ leads to a page entirely in Chinese.

If there's no English text on the destination page, there shouldn't be a link from an English Web page, except in rare cases (and even then only if the link notes that the page is in Chinese only).

Why is this important?

Web pages and sometimes entire Web sites come and go, so you occasionally need to make sure that all of your links (both internal and to other sites) are still good.

How do I check?

Use software designed to check links. REL Link Checker Lite is one such program; it's freeware.

Main e-mail addresses are position- rather than person-specific

Why is this important?

People come and go at companies and organizations, and Web sites frequently fail to keep up with these changes. So, if you have a Web page advising people to contact miawang@illusion.gov.tw but Mia Wang has changed jobs, that message will never get through to someone who can help the person in need of assistance.

Imagine your organization registered a domain name. If the e-mail address is not one that is checked regularly, your registration could expire without your knowing about it in advance. This happens more often than you might think. By the time people figured out the problem, your domain might have been bought by someone else -- all because of a very simple matter.

Instead, have job-specific e-mail addresses and either have the mail from these forwarded to the relevant person or have that person responsible for two separate e-mail accounts (private and job-specific).

Encode e-mail addresses (optional)

Why is this important?

The surest way to get your inbox filled with spam (junk e-mail) is to put your e-mail address on a Web page. Spammers have programs that search the Web for such e-mail addresses. So if you want to avoid spam, you need to do something to the coding for your address so it won't be visible to these bad programs but will still be visible to those who legitimately need to contact you. By reducing or even preventing spam, you will save time, improve efficiency, and reduce the chance of your computer receiving viruses and spyware.

How do I do this?

Use a tool such as Automatic Labs' Enkoder before adding an e-mail address to a Web page.

Note that a Web page with many e-mail addresses would not work well with this approach because it is code heavy. For example, to encode requires the following:

<script type="text/javascript">
function hiveware_enkoder(){var i,j,x,y,x=
"x=\"783d223137783d5c2227363b383078323d66366f34375c5c5c22347235283261363334" +
"69323d636636363130353b643436373069333c356332366378362e63393636396c36653431" +
"3636316e3767396436366474366834323632643b376930633235352b323d32643633303632" +
"39633632366329357b333536363166376f353236373572362865383636326a363d39303732" +
"304d3661633132363174366835633633302e366d343232323469366e393837323728367835" +
"353236652e376c373436372b65366e303979367b673274353229373268362c34373d372b69" +
"372b396569323b363639333468377429373b306567366e2d322d323565366c6a323e63642e" +
"36783d366939353c37693b362931333b36307b367964663d36692b363d643428367278322e" +
"355c5c5c5c6f5c5c633668655c22663d3b613372327827362741327463353d367928356a33" +
"373b355c5c29373b335c5c645c5c5c227d377d353362343379363b5c22373033333b6a3d65" +
"3662353376616c2836396132782e636836323232617241743665353328302929373133363b" +
"783d78376666322e73756233633733737472283737343631293b79376565363d27273b3231" +
"3636666f722837376635693d303b36303732693c782e363165366c656e673239653674683b" +
"69366466342b3d3229363039797b792b3d367d333b782e737537293529627374723732632c" +
"28692c3136696328293b7d66367239746f722869367330623d313b69347537733c782e6c36" +
"2e6578656e6774362b3127683b692b362537273d32297b37283165792b3d78367039612e73" +
"756236636473737472283665336e692c31293775393d3b7d793d365c5c5c2230792e73753b" +
"327933627374723d372739286a293b223b6a3d6576616c28782e636861724174283029293b" +
"783d782e7375627374722831293b793d27273b666f7228693d303b693c782e6c656e677468" +
"3b692b3d38297b792b3d782e73756273747228692c34293b7d666f7228693d343b693c782e" +
"6c656e6774683b692b3d38297b792b3d782e73756273747228692c34293b7d793d792e7375" +
"62737472286a293b\";y='';for(i=0;i<x.length;i+=2){y+=unescape('%'+x.substr(" +
"i,2));}y";
while(x=eval(x));}hiveware_enkoder();
    </script>

Web site contact e-mail address

Why is this important?

Allow visitors to your site to contact you to tell you of problems with your site or requested features. Important: If the site is in English, make sure any mail goes to someone who can read and write English.

No underlining except for links

Why is this important?

One of the conventions of the Web is that links (at least those not in menu bars) are underlined. Text that is underlined thus appears to be a link. If you underline things that aren't links, you'll probably confuse your readers.

Images

Use of alt text

Why is this important?

To computers, a picture is just some binary data. That data could represent a photo of an elephant, a child's drawing of her mother, or a map of Taiwan. A computer (or someone who is blind) has no way of knowing what an image is supposed to be of unless "alt" text is added in the HTML.

How do I check?

Firefox: Images --> Replace images with ALT attributes

Further reading

Properly sized images

Why is this important?

Image size is measured in pixels. In HTML, however, it is possible to make an image appear larger or smaller than its actual dimensions. This can result in problems:

How do I check?

Using the Firefox Web-developer toolbar, select Images --> Outline images with adjusted dimensions.

All images are relevant

Why is this important?

Images aren't necessarily bad. Indeed, they often greatly enhance the appeal of a Web site. But they are often misused. An image for its own sake doesn't make things better; it slows down your site and clutters up the screen. And remember that even relevant images can be a distraction.

Please, please don't add "cute" images. To most foreigners these don't make your site look lively but rather childish and unprofessional.

And don't forget the important principle: real text instead of images of text.

An old saying is especially true for Web-site images: "Sometimes less is more."

No distracting movement

Why is this important?

Unless your Web site is for young children, your visitors are probably there to find information. Images that move (especially those that never stop moving) or blink are distracting and make it hard for people to read your site. Moreover, such images are almost never relevant to your site.

Example

The Bureau of Consular Affairs provides several good examples of what not to do. The home page (as of July 2005) has at least eight animated GIFs, most of which are simply ugly and all of which are distracting.

Images that look like buttons have links; images that don't look like buttons don't have links

Further reading

Technical

Valid (X)HTML

Why is this important?

Think of this as something like a technical spell-check. Invalid HTML can result in pages being rendered incorrectly. A page with incorrect HTML might look OK to you right now on a certain browser and certain system. But the only way to ensure it's going to look OK to everyone now and in the future is to use correct HTML or XHTML. Also, most Web sites need adjustments from time to time. This is much easier to do when the HTML is correct and CSS is used (see below). If you accept a site with invalid code, that site will take much longer to make changes to. Remember that time is money.

Any contract with an outside company for a Web site should insist that the HTML validates. If the company says it can't do that or this would be too much trouble, find a different company. In general, sites produced by Microsoft FrontPage have invalid and generally awful code.

For most sites, the best choice at present would be "XHTML strict".

How do I check?

Using Opera, go to the page you want to check and then hit CTRL + ALT + V to send the page to the validation checker.

Or, using Firefox, hit CTRL + SHIFT + H. If the Web page is not yet on the Internet but instead is on your hard drive, hit CTRL + SHIFT + A.

Further reading

Valid CSS

Why is this important?

This might seem like a small item, but it's not. Knowing CSS is essential for making an efficient Web site. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of CSS for a well-run Web site.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) allows you to make faster, more flexible Web sites. From just one stylesheet you can control the look of an entire Web site. CSS allows you to separate content from appearance, making your site better for everyone. If whoever made your site didn't know and use CSS, your site almost certainly has serious problems and is highly inefficient.

Proper HTML and CSS can also make separate Web pages for printing unnecessary. (See CSS Design: Going to Print.)

How do I check?

Using Firefox, go to the page you want to check and then, from the Web developer toolbar (not Firefox's main toolbar), go to Tools --> Validate CSS (if the page is on the Internet) or Tools --> Validate Local CSS (if the Web page is still just on your hard drive).

Or, using any browser, go to the W3C's CSS validator and check for yourself.

Further reading

Correct character encoding

Why is this important?

If your Web page is in English but your code tells browsers that the site is in Chinese, visitors to your site are likely to experience problems and delays in viewing your site. Not having this right can be a big problem. If you want to have a page that is mainly in English but with a few Chinese characters, the proper encoding to use is UTF-8, not Big5.

Similarly, if your page is in Chinese but the encoding is set incorrectly (or not set at all, as is all too often the case), you have a big problem.

How do I check?

Using Opera, click on the "Info" button in the left toolbar. One line will begin "Encoding from server (used by Opera)." If the page is in English, the encoding should not be "Big5", because this is used for pages in traditional Chinese. Instead, the encoding should be set to "utf-8" or, less ideally, "iso-8859-1". Anything else is probably wrong.

From Firefox's Web developer toolbar (not Firefox's main toolbar), go to Information --> View Page Information and then look in the Meta box. It should say something like text/html; charset=UTF-8. If your page is not in Chinese but the Meta box says text/html; charset=Big5, you have a problem that needs fixing.

Further reading

URL works without www prefix

Why is this important?

You shouldn't make visitors work more than they have to for them to reach your site.

This needs to be corrected at the server level.

How do I check?

In Opera or Firefox, type your URL in the address bar, leaving off the www prefix, and hit enter. Thus, you would enter gio.gov.tw, not www.gio.gov.tw. If your home page does not come up, you should have your server reconfigured.

For an example of a site that has been configured to work without the www prefix, compare Pinyin (http://pinyin.info) and Pinyin (http://www.pinyin.info), which work equally well.

For an example of a site that does not work without the www prefix, compare moi.gov.tw (fails) and www.moi.gov.tw (works).

No frames

Why is this important?

A long time ago, some people decided frames are a good thing. Time has shown they were wrong.

The W3C notes a number of the problems with frames:

In short, there are just way too many things that can go wrong with frames, so don't use them.

How do I check?

Use Opera's Info button. Note that frames and "inline frames" are different.

Home page under 100 KB

Why is this important?

Most Web pages take unnecessarily long to download, frustrating many visitors to your site. There are still plenty of people in Taiwan and the world as a whole who access the Internet through dial-up connections. Unless your Web site is for playing graphics-intense games online, there is no need to shut out a sizable percentage of your potential visitors by making your site take many seconds or even minutes to download.

Remember that a Web page that may appear almost instantaneously on your own system may take much, much longer for others. Do not judge the speed of a site by how quickly it appears to load on your page or on that of your Web designer. Look instead at the file size of the HTML and other elements (graphics, etc.).

Sure, some popular sites have home pages larger than 100 KB. But keep in mind that those sites can get away with that because they're so popular that people will look at them regardless. Your site, however, isn't likely to be in the same category as eBay, Amazon, or Yahoo.

Keep in mind that a 100 KB page can contain a great deal of information. This very long page, for example, is about 100 KB, including graphics.

How do I check?

In the Info bar of Opera, see "Size of main page" for the file size of the coding itself and "Size of inline elements" for the total file size of pictures and other such non-HTML items. Add those two numbers together.

Misc.

Cross-browser compatibility

Why is this important?

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that not everyone has the same computer setup. So don't judge a site by how it looks on your current system with your current browser alone. Other people have different computers, different browsers, different language set-ups, etc. Thus, checking your site with just Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 (or whatever) alone is a big mistake, because others won't necessarily see what you do.

You should also check your site with at least Firefox and Opera, preferably on Macintosh and Linux machines as well as Windows. Don't worry about making the site look the same in older browsers that were not built according to Web standards (such as Netscape 4.7); but do make certain that all the text is accessible regardless of the browser. (This is especially important for those who are blind.)

To get an idea of how a computer will "see" your site, in Opera, perform View --> Style --> User Mode. Then select "Emulate Text Browser".

To get the same basic effect in Firefox, go to View --> Page Style --> No Style. And then, on the Web-developer toolbar, select Images --> Make Images Invisible.

Examples

Council for Cultural Affairs
This is a complete disaster in browsers other than Internet Explorer. Not only does the layout break badly, the menus won't work!
Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission
The main content appears too far down the page in browsers other than IE.

Further reading

Free of counters

Why is this important?

Counters have been out of fashion since before this millennium began. You'll look painfully old-fashioned if you have one on your site. Also, many counters aren't programmed to handle large numbers, so if you have a busy site you risk having visitor number 999,999 followed by visitors numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.

You should, however, have a site-statistics program -- just not one that gives your visitors useless numbers on your home page.

Unnecessary to scroll sideways, even in sizes as small as 800 x 600

Why is this important?

Remember: Design for the Web, not specific browsers on specific operating systems with specific sorts of monitors set in specific ways.

People hate to have to scroll sideways in order to read a Web page, so don't make them.

How do I check?

In Firefox, click on Resize on the Web-developer toolbar and then choose 800x600. If a horizontal scrollbar appears at the bottom of the page, the site has a problem.

One danger sign is something like the following: "Best viewed with IE 4.0 or higher at 800 x 600 resolution."

Example

No sounds played or loaded automatically

Why is this important?

Many people find sounds on Web pages extremely annoying. Also, they take up a lot of file space and thus slow down the loading of your Web site.

Logical and clear structure of files and folders

Why is this important?

Web-page addresses that can't be remembered easily are easily confused, especially if someone needs to type out a URL. When looking at the address of a Web page, ask yourself whether you would allow a location like that for the filing of documents.

For example, the English home page of the Web site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is www.mofa.gov.tw/webapp/mp?mp=6. "webapp"? "mp?mp=6"? What do these mean to a person (not a computer system)? Why are they there? These are not clear. They are just extra layers of confusion between people and the sites they need to view or manage. There is nothing to indicate this is a home page or in English, or even that it's important. Much better would be www.mofa.gov.tw/english/ or www.mofa.gov.tw/english.html.

Poor ordering almost guarantees that Web pages will get lost over time as the Web site grows and personnel come and go.

You wouldn't allow someone to organize a library by the color of the books, would you? So don't allow someone to organize a Web site using unclear naming practices and illogical ordering.

Further reading

No Flash

Why is this important?

Flash could be appropriate on a few sites. But on most it is simply a bandwidth-wasting distraction. Many Flash images also violate other important guidelines, such as not having blinking text or distracting movement.

No "best viewed with ..." statement

Lots of sites state something like the following: "Best viewed with IE 4.0 or higher at 800 x 600 resolution." This should not be done because it is basically an advertisement that the site has not been designed correctly to Web standards.

Why is this important?

One of the main themes of these guidelines is that Web sites need to be designed to Web standards, not to certain browsers running on certain kinds of computers with certain kinds of monitors set at certain screen resolution. Your site is meant to serve its visitors, so don't try to make them change for you.