Deft Creative Articles

The Benefits of Web Standards, an Introduction

November 21st, 2006

There are established standards in the web design world (just like a lot of other industries) which dictate the way in which websites should be designed and developed. Sticking to these standards bring a lot of benefits, which are outlined below, but even so, a huge number of web designers ignore these standards and the benefits they can bring for their clients.

What are these web standards?

The standards relate to both the technology used to build websites, and the way in which that technology is used.

For many years, since the beginning of the Internet, the technology has been misused, and has almost become standard practice, even though it is wrong. These bad habits were born out of having to hack and workaround the limited technology of the day on order to force it to do something it wasn’t created for.

We now have an established set of standards to follow, and we as web designers should all be doing so.

In a nutshell, websites should be developed with the following considerations:

• Use semantically correct markup
• Use accessible code
• Use valid code
• Separate content from presentation

The benefits of web standards

There are too many benefits of using web standards over the old methods for them to be ignored;

• Your pages will display quicker (as there is less bloated code, and the code used is valid)
• Your pages will be accessible to a wide range of devices, not just standard PCs (such as screenreaders for the blind, mobile devices etc) so your website will be more compliant with the UK accessibility guidelines, which must also be followed.
• All pages will be printer friendly (see previous post “Perfectly printable web pages” for more details)
• The site is easier to maintain and site-wide style changes are simple.
• Your site will rank better in search engine listings
• Bandwidth costs will be reduced as there is a lot less code involved behind the pages
• Your website will be future-proofed, staying compatible with future technological developments

Conclusion

We have been developing using web standards for some time now, and will never go back to the old ways. There really should be no excuses from anyone still developing and not sticking to web standards. Web standards are the building blocks of the future of the web, and if you are enlisting the services of a web designer, you should be asking the question, “Do you design with web standards”.

Entry Filed under: Web Design Best Practices