Chapter 11 – Web Standards
11.5 Web Standards for Designers
11.5 Introduction
I like to open up with a quote from Andrew Tannenbaum, “The nice thing about
standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.” (www.sysprog.net) This is very true on many areas and concepts, but on the World Wide Web there are groups pushing to limit the choices.
To understand web standards for designers we first must review what a standard is. According to dictionary.com a standard is something, such as a practice or a product that is widely recognized or employed especially because of its excellence. Another version more in depth would be from Merriam-Webster Online, a standard is something
established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example; regularly and widely used, available; substantially uniform and well established by usage in the speech and writing of the educated and widely recognized as acceptable. (“Merriam-Webster: Standard”, 2006)
The rationale for having web standards would be to have a widely used and uniform view on website development.
The Web Standards Movement
An article in wikipedia.com describes web standards as “a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web (WWW).” (“Wikipedia: Web standards”, 2006) What does this mean? The web standards for dummies answer would be - the need for consistent design on the web. According to wikipedia, “it has only been recently that the term standard has been
applied to the WWW.” (“Wikipedia: Web standards”, 2006) The old way of building websites is out and the new dawn or movement of standards begins. We as designers must ensure that our site is being used and viewed properly, no matter what modality of computer system is being used.
There are groups or organizations that are preaching for better web practices. The Web Standards Project and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are two particular organizations that are leading the way to make the Web a better place to be. The Web Standards Project focuses on “encouraging browser and web page editor makers to follow the standards in their applications.” Whereas 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.” Both organizations work with
goal is to “develop protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth for the Web.”
“At its core, the web standards are made up of three main components. The first is the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), which is a universal system for referencing resources on the Web, such as web pages. The second component is HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which specifies how the browser and server communicate with each other. The final component is the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), used to define the
structure and content of hypertext documents.” (The Web Standards Project [WaSP], 2006) Without these components there would be no need for web designers. Without consistency there would be chaos and the Internet's capabilities would diminish. Determination for the movement revolves around two particular concepts usability and accessibility. These areas affect everything about web design, browser support,
companies that have developer software, and yes the average Joe who wants to view the Internet, also known as the end-user.
Usability is a huge concern for web designers. The site must be designed so all who view it will be able to navigate and understand what the site has to offer. “Usability a term is used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human made object in order to achieve a particular goal.” (“Wikipedia: Usability”, 2006) Usability can also relate to the efficiency of a tool which relates itself to web pages and sites.
Accessibility is another driving force for standards on the Web. We, the designers are creating sites that want to be viewed by the world, no matter who or what disabilities that individual has. Accessibility allows users with other types of browsers to access and allow voice or Braille to translate the material. This terminology is also directed through Section 508. “In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual's ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals.” (Section 508)
Advantages of Web Standards
• Usability
• Accessibility
• Uniform design for coding
• Visibility - Greater audience
• Search engine presence
• Promotes better web design
• What you see is what you want
Search engines use specific coding to rank and display sites, which gives you the designer a higher visibility on the net. “The structural information present in compliant documents makes it easy for search engines to access and evaluate the information in those documents, and they get indexed more accurately.” With a better search result you would increase your chances of the number of viewers, increasing your numbers and business at the same time.
“Compliant documents can easily be converted to other formats, such as databases or Word documents. This allows for more versatile use of the information within documents on the World Wide Web, and simplified migration to new systems - hardware as well as software - including devices such as TVs and PDAs.” (WaSP, 2006)
Why? I am Just a Designer
As a designer, your main drive of creating, designing, developing a website is for people to have access and use it to its fullest potential. "Some people fear that standards are limiting. In reality, they remove much of the tedious labor involved in web development, and give developers more time and more flexibility to be truly creative. They are both open to future improvement and mindful of past technology." (WaSP, 2006)
Say you created a website for a customer, while spending hours of time testing and applying the site to a particular browser. Did you know that you just created a site that was creative and perfect, but only on that browser! Your choice, do spend hours redoing the site for each browser type or do you push for the needs of standards across browser windows. There is nothing more aggravating then spending time on a web design and having it distorted through resolution settings or browser windows or coding issues. “Writing web pages in accordance with the standards shortens site development time and makes pages easier to maintain. Debugging and troubleshooting become easier, because the code follows a standard. No longer do you have to worry about the coding and maintenance for several versions of code that are supposed to accomplish the same presentation.” (WaSP, 2006)
“Maintaining universal standards will allow the Web to survive while encouraging innovation to continue at its current pace.” (WaSP, 2006)
How can I follow the Standards?
Some of the newer products available for web development do follow most of the
universal standards; still companies tend to do what is best for sales. The WaSP and W3C organizations work closely with companies who are interested in promoting standards for website development. One company that appears to adhere to most of the standards is Macromedia and their Dreamweaver software for the development of websites. Dreamweaver automatically writes the public DOCTYPE code on each newly created HTML document. As you can see below this line is recommended by the W3C.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html> <head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859- 1">
<title>Untitled Document</title> </head>
</html>
However, if you want stricter, more logical code, with presentation moved to stylesheets instead of old-fashioned presentational tags, use the strict doctype:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html40/strict.dtd">
The "stricter" the type, the more difficult it could be to ensure that you conform to the standards. The most commonly used DTD is the loose format, which gives designers a little more freedom when trying to be compliant.
Other standards are also applied in Dreamweaver when it comes to coding. However, your job then as a designer is to design the page, the concern or issue is that
Dreamweaver at this point in time does not tell you when something is not conforming with the standards and the recommendations of the W3C. So how are you to conform to the web standards? Well the answer is to use a validator. You will read further about validators in this chapter.
You do have an option; you can choose to create sites without standards, but that might be an unwise choice. “The most basic consequence is that you will restrict access to your site. How much business sense does it make to limit your audience to only a fraction of those who wish to be a part of it? For a business site, denying access to even small portions of a target audience can make a big difference to your profit margin. For an educational site, it makes sense to allow access not only to affluent, able-bodied school- children with graphical browsers, but also to children in regions with poorly-developed infrastructure who are best served by text-only browsing, or disabled students using specialized browsers.” (WaSP, 2006)
11.5 Conclusion
“As web developers, we are constantly trying to address the problem of inconsistencies between the renderings of web pages by different browsers and browser versions. This necessitates either time-consuming double/multiple coding, or coding for a single browser which makes it harder, if not impossible, for some of the public to use the site. This situation will be made even worse with the advent of additional hardware and software which will be able to browse the Web, such as telephones, pagers, and PDAs.” (WaSP, 2006)
Web standards are not picked randomly and they are created by established and well known individuals in this field. “The standards are for the most part decided by representatives of the same people who use them - browser makers, web developers, content providers, and other organizations.”
“Writing web pages in accordance with the standards shortens site development time and makes pages easier to maintain. Debugging and troubleshooting become easier, because the code follows a standard. No longer do you have to worry about the coding and maintenance for several versions of code that are supposed to accomplish the same presentation.”(WaSP, 2006)
Again you do have a choice, but it is as simple as looking both ways when you cross the street. Eventually, you will get run over by not following the most simplest of standards.
11.5 References
• 508 tools and resources. (2006) Section 508. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=8
• Dictionary Online: Standard. (2006) Retrieved May 3, 2006 from http://dictionary.com
• Frequently asked questions: What are web standards and why should I use them? (Updated 2002, February 27) The Web Standards Project, WaSP. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from http://webstandards.org/learn/faq/
• Merriam-Webster: Standard. (2006) Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/standard
• Quotes for programmers. sysprog.net. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from http://www.sysprog.net/quotes.html
• Wikipedia: Accessibility. (Updated 2006, April 25) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Accessibility&oldid=50131614
• Wikipedia: Usability. (Updated 2006, May 1) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usability&oldid=51060717
• Wikipedia: Web standards. (Updated 2006, March 8) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from