webqem blog

We’ve been relentlessly espousing the virtues of Web Standards for the past year. And with the promise of faster loading, easily accessible, future-proofed sites that display on a wider range of devices and platforms – why wouldn’t we?

Standards. Not a dreadfully inspiring word (let’s face it – it sounds downright boring) but the application of standards in web development is something to get excited about if you own or have anything to do with running a website. Really, it is.

What’s it all about?

Let’s take a step back and see how the Web got to where it is today.

Quite obviously, standards exist for just about everything we use on a daily basis – from batteries to credit cards to petrol pump nozzles. It’s all so obvious we don’t even think about it. Standards generally evolve over time bringing greater efficiencies to everybody.

In the mid to late 1990′s the World Wide Web exploded with content, with few rules and standards to guide its development. Developers and designers pushed the boundaries, utilising browser specific workarounds to increase web page sophistication. The ‘browser wars’ between Microsoft and Netscape did little to help, with each browser release adding proprietary extensions, “goodies’ and manufacturers interpretations of the emerging standards.

The result of this was that, by the turn of the century, most major web sites were built with at least some proprietary ‘hacks’ and workarounds – a situation that persists today. Often, sites are built with different chunks of code to serve to different browsers, just to get the same visual result. Each time new browsers and devices are released the site developers have to play catch-up: re-hacking, fudging and kludging (highly technical terms!) to get the pages to work with the new browser, while being careful not to break the appearance of the site on older ones.

Yeah? And?…

“So what?” you might ask. “Just get on with your job and quit the bleating, web-boy” you could also feel inclined to remark. True – these web sites seem to work pretty well on the face of it. So what’s the big deal?

The really big deal is that maintaining a web site that is not built on web standards costs a lot more time and money than it needs to. Possibly your money. And it will continue to take longer and cost more to maintain in perpetuity. Changes are difficult to make. The content (copy & imagery) and style (colours, fonts, appearance) may be interwoven in such a way that even a simple change takes hours to complete.

And there’s more to it than just wasted time and money. Non-standard sites are slower to load – which equals a poorer experience for users and possible additional bandwidth costs for the site owner.

Time for standards

There’s good news. The same market forces which brought you a petrol pump nozzle that fits snugly into the hole in the side of your car have also brought about standards on the web. And – I’m hazarding a guess here – probably in a lot shorter time than it took to standardise petrol dispensing equipment.

‘The Web Standards Project’ was founded in 1998, gaining momentum and a critical mass with both browser makers and developers until, thankfully, today we have a workable standard with which to build web sites.

What Web Standards can do for you

In real and practical terms, building with Web Standards brings some enormous benefits. The following is by no means an exhaustive list.

• Development time and costs are reduced.
  It’s easier and quicker to build with Web Standards.
• Maintenance and modifications are much easier.
  A fundamental principle of Web Standards is the true separation of content from styling within the page code. This makes a global change (like switching to a different font and colour scheme) a snip – even across thousands of pages. It also makes enabling content management a far less complex process – putting the editing power into the hands of the site and content owners.
• Faster page loading, reduced hosting costs.
  Building to Web Standards is just a whole lot more efficient. Pages load more quickly for users, and use less bandwidth to serve. A Web Standard page will typically be 50% of the file-size of its older, bloated version.
• Future-proofing.
  Because the same standards should continue to be supported by browser and device makers, a Web Standards compliant site should not need re-engineering to work with new platforms in the future.
• Greater accessibility.
  Accessibility for disabled users is becoming a pressing issue for web site owners. Besides the fact that it makes good sense to build for the widest possible audience, legislation is in place to force compliance for new site builds. Building to Web Standards inherently provides greater accessibility, and the steps required to fully comply with the strictest W3C accessibility guidelines are reduced.

What to do about Web Standards

Obviously, we’re strongly advising that everyone should be moving towards Web Standards.

For our larger corporate clients, the move towards Web Standards may need a transitional approach. It’s not a huge leap to move from older, outdated web development methods into the new world of Web Standards, but a different way of thinking and some up-skilling is required. Whilst a huge site makeover may not be immediately possible, incremental changes can still be introduced, taking steps closer to Web Standards. Any new site development should be undertaken using Web Standards.

For small businesses and companies without their own IT team, redeveloping an existing site with web standards may not be worthwhile, but if and when a new site is developed, it should be designed and built for Web Standards. (If you’ve had a site built by webqem this year it will already be Web Standards compliant).

A few Web Standards based site examples

• BHP Billiton
• Disney Store UK
• World Wildlife Foundation Earthly Goods Store
• Macromedia
• Wired magazine
• Black Dog Institute
• E&A Lawyers
• webqem

Want to know more?

We’ve barely scratched the surface in this article, but hopefully you have a fair idea why we are so adamant about building with Web Standards. The writing is on the wall for outdated, inefficient web site development (and developers) and good riddance to it (and them) we say.

There are many more resources available online. In particular, the following are exceptional guides from MACCAWS (Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards)…

• What Every Web Site Owner Should Know About Standards: A Web Standards Primer
  A non-technical explanation of Web standards for Web site owners and managers. This article explains the benefits of Web standards, how they work, and how to begin implementing them.
• The Way Forward with Web Standards
  The MACCAWS white paper on Web standards. This article assembles arguments and information about Web standards into one document and explains Web standards in terms of how they affect business. It’s more detailed and also has some more technical information.

For a really in-depth look at the subject, we thoroughly recommend the book Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman.

If you would like to know more, or have any questions, feel free to get in touch with us.