9.1 Organise documents so they may be read without style sheets
The New Zealand Web Standards 2.0 were released in March 2009 and replace the previous version, the New Zealand Government Web Standards 1.0 (below). See Meeting the standards for more information.
The Standard
9.1 Documents are organised so that they may be read, and the site remains fully functional, without style sheets.
Guide to this standard
Web sites that use style sheet techniques 'degrade gracefully' (as defined in the Glossary of Key Concepts), so that the site remains fully functional if style sheet techniques are ignored. Test for graceful degradation by viewing the site with a text browser, such as Lynx, or use Firefox Web Developer toolbar to disable CSS.
For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document in the logical order it was intended with style sheets.
This standard covers the W3C WAI checkpoint 6.1 for NZ government agencies.
Rationale for this standard
Style sheets are not consistently supported by different browsers, and some browsers (generally older browsers) do not support them at all. For further detail, see the Irish National Disability Authority.
