Web Design & Usability

What Is/Are Web Standards And Why Do They Matter?
W3C, The World Wide Web Consortium, develops and publishes industry standards / guidelines for web languages such as HTML, CSS, and XML.  These standards enable people to create websites that will work in most internet browsers, that are easier to maintain, are more accessible to more people, and will continue to function correctly as technologies evolve.  A Good Business Argument For Web Standards.

How To Use Web Standards

First thing is to visit W3C to get a better understanding of web standards and the different areas of web standards (Web Design And Application, Web Architecture, Semantic Web...to name a few).  I ran across many checklist and step-by-step plans, below I listed what I found to be the most common ideas.  

• Quality Of Code
• Separate Content And Presentation
• Ensure Accessibility For All Users And Devices
• Basic Usability - Hierarchies, Navigation, And Consistency
• Site Management - Friendly URLs And Error Handling

Checkout The Complete Checklist: A Web Standards Checklist 


So how do you implement the checklist?
My thoughts on this...Get a few good code validators, Google threw a few out at me, I'd start with the W3C recommendations. As far as the separation of content and presentation Opera does a good job of why and how as part of their Web Standards Model.  Basic Usability and Accessibility seem like the easy part, and maybe they are or can be as long as you understand how user think, and know all of the different types of users that may encounter your site...yeah, I'd refer to the W3C Guides to get a better understanding of this.  Site Management, the short of this, handle server errors and make sure that your URLs work in all browser, and don't need the "WWW".


By following the web standards you can develop a well designed website that is friendly to use and easy to maintain.  A little effort upfront can save you time and money in the long run...don't be afraid of being standard.



Video: Apple Gets Flashy Without Flash (HTML5 And Web Standards)