Why You Need Web Standards

"There was a time not that long ago when many drivers thought nothing of tossing empty bottles out the windows of their cars. Years later, these same citizens came to realize that littering was not an acceptable way to dispose of their trash. The web design community is now undergoing a similar shift in attitude. Web standards are key to this transformation."

—Designing with Web Standards

Web Standards Defined

Web standards are a collection of coding practices and design techniques that follow rules set in place by various standard-setting organizations. For example, your website code should conform to the programming standards of the World Wide Web Consortium and your design should follow guidelines in Section 508 to offer accessibility for disabled persons. There are also agreed upon methods for rendering your site on different platforms including mobile phones.

Why You Need Web Standards

Web standards are the future of the web. Its benefits reinforce why you need them for your website:

• Faster downloading and page loading. Clean, standard code results in compact files that download and render faster. Web browsers also load much faster when in Standard mode than they do in backward compatible mode or quarks mode. In those other modes, the browser will take a longer time to translate a page and may not display your website the way you designed it.
  • Translation: Your website visitors and customers see your pages faster on their screens.

  
  

• Search engine friendly. Search engines like Google and Yahoo! love standards compliant websites because they are much easier to read. A search engine reads only the website’s code. Standards-compliant web sites get better ranking, which means those websites appear higher in the list of search results.
  • Translation: Your website will show up higher in search result lists.

  
  

• Accessibility beyond your computer. Accessibility is a topic of increasing importance as web browsers migrate from your computer to other devices like a mobile phone or screen reader. Clean code and structure that are separate from presentation make it easier for other devices to interpret the content.
  • Translation: Your website is readable on cell phones and PDA (Blackberry) devices.

  
  

• Future proof or compatibility with new web browsers. When a new web browser comes out, such as Firefox or Explorer 7.0, you will often need to tweak your website and in some cases redo the whole thing. When conforming to defined standards and validated code, you greatly minimize this risk and extra work.
  • Translation: Your Website Developer/Implementer spends less time having to maintain your site for Internet browser upgrades.

  
  

• Development and maintenance cycles simplified. Developers may spend a little extra effort on the front end to create a new site, but maintenance is greatly reduced and most design changes can be rolled
  out easily.
  • Translation: Your Website Developer/Implementer is happier and more likely to get the job done faster for you!

To summarize, Web Standards have a direct and positive benefit to your business by simplifying the implementation and reaching the most people possible.