About Web Standards
In the Beginning There was the Internet...
Written by: William Knelsen
Since the beginning of the Internet, web designers have struggled to create websites that are unique and creative, often sacrificing usability and accessibility to make a site more unique than the next. For years, web designers have been achieving this by secretly constructing your site with duct tape and hot glue. The code that makes up many sites consists of tables within tables and unnecessary markup all over the place. However, there is a better way of building your site...
Just as there are building codes and standards in the construction industry, there are standards in the web industry. The only problem is that most web designers are unaware of them or are simply too stuck in their own way of building sites to learn these standards. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.
The most important aspect of Web Standards is the concept of completely separating design from content. This means that the content of your site is held in the HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) and the instructions for how the website looks is contained in a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) file. By separating content from design, the site is less cluttered and the most important part of the site, the content, is accessible through all platforms. Here are some benefits of web standards:
1. Compatibility - All people, no matter what browser, operating system, or Internet speed they are using are able to access the content of your site.
2. Accessibility - Sites that are built using web standards have a greater chance of being viewed by people with non-typical browsers like voice browsers that read the pages out loud, braille browsers, and text-only browsers.
3. Better Printing - Because the way the site looks is defined by a separate style sheet, it is possible to have a style sheet designated for printing. This means all the content that is unnecessary when you print a page can be removed, like images and links. Try printing this page and see for yourself.
4. Accessible from Mobile Browsers - More and more people are using mobile data devices, which are capable of browsing the Internet. At this point most sites are not properly viewable using a mobile device. Just as you are able to have a separate style sheet for printing, a separate style sheet for mobile browsers are possible as well.
5. Increased Speed - Sites built with web standards are less bulky and smaller in size. When a person loads a web site, the first thing that loads is the HTML, then CSS files and images. If someone has a slow connection speed, they will be able to view the content of the site immediately, allowing them to navigate the site while the styles and images load.
6. Flexibility for Future Changes - All of the commands for how the web site looks are in one place, so making changes is easily done without having to rebuild the site.
7. Search Engine Friendly - When search engines crawl through a website, they don't care about how the site looks, they simply want to grab information from the content of the site. By separating the content from the design, search engines have an easier time getting the information they want.