Website standards checklist - Part 1 - Pre Launch
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009Web standards - more to creating a compliant website then just removing tables!
What does the term ‘web standards’‘ really mean? For those of us in the industry who earn our living creating website, it should have 1 meaning. However, if you have looked and read many of the blogs out there on this subject, then you will know that it means different things to different GUI/desiners/web coders.
For the vast majority it means creating website that are ‘table-less sites‘ in relation to the site layout. There are a few designers/coders who are more evangelical about standards and compliance to them. I do belong to this group and am more focused on standards and would point out that web standards to me means ’using valid code‘.
However, web standards are much more than just valid (X)HTML. A site built to web standards should adhere to all standards for this medium (Such as HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, DOM, MathML, SVG etc) and pursue best practices (valid code, accessible code, semantically correct code, user-friendly URLs etc).
In other words, a site built to web standards should ideally be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly.