Webmaster Papers








Making The Business Case For Web Standards


Through the explosive growth of the Web, companies have realized the benefit of building a strong online presence. By publishing a website to the Internet, companies are able to build their brand, market their products, support existing customers, release publicity pieces, and even take orders. Lost in the feverish pace of growth however, has been an eye on the effect that their current web-building practices have on the bottom line and the future of their online presence. Not only does the website content itself have an impact on the company's income but so does the way the site itself is created.

Building your site with a commitment to web standards - and continuously testing to ensure it maintains its adherence to those standards - can save your company money and even increase website related income.

What are web standards?

Web standards are, for purposes of this discussion, carefully designed sets of rules and protocols that drive web-based content throughout the Internet.

Specifically, web standards revolve around:

  • Structural Languages - such as HTML, XHTML, XML, SMIL, SVG, MathML

  • Presentation Languages - such as CSS, XSL

  • Document Object Model

  • ECMAScript

These web standards have been defined by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standards bodies to ensure the interoperability and access of documents placed on the web. Documents that follow the established standards will benefit in many ways:

  • Lower maintenance effort and cost

  • Lower cost for redesign

  • Improved usability and accessibility

  • Broader compatibility across platforms and devices

  • Reduced hardware demand and cost

Site wide look and feel consistency

Designing to current standards enables the site to maintain the same look and feel theme throughout the site. Standards also allow the site's look and feel to change rapidly with little additional load on personnel resources.

Improved usability: smaller document size loads faster

Designing to current standards means that - by proxy - the documents will be smaller. Because of this, the pages will load faster for the user. Download times have been shown to be a factor in website usability. A perceived delay in site presentation undermines users' evaluation of the site. Users systematically rate slower sites as less interesting and having lower quality content. In addition they report that delays interfere with task continuity, their ability to remember the site, and use flow. Exceedingly slow sites can lead users to believe an error has occurred. Finally, users correlate site performance and security: Chronically slow sites are considered to be less secure resources for purchase. (http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/aug03.asp)

Better cross-platform compatibility

As browser manufacturers come closer to adhering to web standards, it is becoming clearer that creating standards-based pages can be an increasing assurance that the site will operate across multiple platforms. "Rendering fine" is a myth born of misunderstanding. Considering that 5 different rendering engines are used to surf the web using dozens of browsers (and versions of those browsers) on 3 platforms, attempting to test the site for rendering in every configuration is next to impossible. Coding to standards then, is the only practical solution for ensuring compatibility - now and in the future.

Prepares for the future

"Rendering fine" on current browsers is no guarantee that a site with invalid markup will render fine in the future. Moreover, it is no guarantee that a site will render fine (or at all) in the growing number of non-traditional devices such as PDAs and cellular telephones. As browser manufacturers make further efforts to make their products adhere to standards, the point of "rendering fine" in target browsers becomes moot, anyway. Standards-compliant markup will be even more of a guarantee that it will work on all platforms than error-laden and proprietary markup.

Extensibility

Designing to the current standard means sites should be marked up using XHTML - an XML-compatible version of HMTL. Using this format will enable the company to venture into the inevitable world of XML without the need for major modifications to the site structure. XML features can be added quickly and painlessly.

Lower maintenance and easier troubleshooting

Personnel can come and go - but the code they create will stay behind. If that code contains error-laden, invalid markup and "work-arounds" for rendering in target browsers, it will cost the company money in personnel time to find the bad markup and make it right. "Because standards are very well documented, another person taking over some standard-compliant code can hit the ground running - and will not need to become familiar with the previous developer's coding practices." - Tristan Nitot, Netscape Communications (http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/why-web-standards)

Regardless of who does the site maintenance, designing to standards ensures shorter time spent hunting down problems. While poor rendering may very well be a buggy browser, in most cases "rendering improperly" usually means "something is wrong". Validation is one of the ways to uncover exactly what the issue is. By maintaining a standards-compliant site, you are providing yourself with insurance that if something goes awry, you will be able to more easily and quickly get to the possible cause. Simply put, if you know everything else is OK, you can focus any troubleshooting efforts on what has been changed instead of looking at what else already existed that could have caused or exacerbated the problem.

Accessibility

Designing with web standards makes accessibility an easier goal to achieve, as standards have been created with accessibility in mind.

Proper markup goes beyond "validity". Each element in (x)HTML has been created with a specified purpose, and so creating a standards-compliant site also means using the most appropriate element for the task at hand. Doing so increases accessibility. Proper markup gives alternative access devices the ability to provide context to the page's content.

Reduced bandwidth cost

Last, adhering to standards-based markup can reduce the amount that a company pays for bandwidth. As stated above, adherence to standards has the effect of reducing the size of a document - by up to 50% or more by some estimates. This can lead to big savings in bandwidth charges for high-traffic websites.

Standards just make sense

So what does all of this really mean? As the company's website becomes more important to its bottom line, standards can help position the company as a leader. Those who choose to make the commitment to quality will find a payoff that begins immediately and lasts into the future. Right now, you'll save on development of new content. In the future you'll benefit from reduced maintenance and increased agility. Standards compliance just makes sense.

Additional Resources

  • HTML Standards Compliance - Why Bother?

  • Why Should You Validate Your Web Pages?

  • WASP: Fighting For Standards Liberty!

  • Quality! Validity!

  • Why We Won't Help You

  • How User-Agents Handle Tag Soup

  • The Business Value Of Web Standards

  • Web Standards For Business

About The Author

Karl Groves is a freelance web designer who has done production work on sites for National Cancer Institute, Network For Good, Aerospace Medical Association and more.

RELATED ARTICLES

Five Question-Five Minute Web Makeover Quiz
If you haven't made the sales and built your clients to an income you want, then you may need a Web Site makeover.
6 Steps To Your Own Website
A lot of people these days are interested in getting their own place on the world wide web. Whether itīs a personal site like a blog, or a business site, they all need to have a decent plan before they get started.
How Improving Your Sites Usability Can Increase Your Buyers by 40% and Boost Each Order By 10%!
With all of the factors involved in designing and building a web site, one of the most influential questions is often overlooked:
Top 5 Reasons to Track Your Website Traffic
#5 User Satisfaction: Learn what your visitors and site users do and do not like about your site. Using a good reporting service allows you to monitor your pages individually to see what pages are clicked on first, the most popular pages, duration of any given visitor's time viewing a page (visit duration), and what pages send your visitors off your site (exit pages).
UK Online Shopping with an Edge, for Buyers and Sellers Alike
Any new website competing on the internet, needs to take its business seriously, as there is so much competition around. So, there needs to be an edge on quality, content, and general user appeal.
5 Ways to Build a Website
If you are like me you have wanted to build a website but didn't know how!
Website Imperatives and Solutions
When you take a look at the most visited sites on the internet, what hits you in the face? Change, growth, new content. In a sense, a search engine is the perfect web site. By it's very nature, it grows and changes continuously and moment by moment adds new content. But, most of us are never going to build a Yahoo or a Google. The competition at that level is horrific.
Web Accessibility Myths
With more and more countries around the world passing laws about blind and disabled access to the Internet (including the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK), web accessibility has been thrown into the spotlight of the online community. This article attempt to put a stop to the misinformation that has been thrown around and tell you the truth behind web accessibility.
Nonsense! Why Do I Need a Website?
"I don't sell anything online, I don't advertise online, in fact I don't really even know how to use a computer... why should I pay for a website?"
The Power Of CPanel
cPanel is a control panel for your website and allows you to set up and manage your web account through a graphical interface instead of having to use command line. This means that you can make changes to your website without having to learn to use a command line environment. There are a variety of control panels out there, most offering a graphical interface and granting access to email management, FTP, subdomain administration, website statistics, etc. With a control panel, you can add/remove email accounts or view disk usage and statistics for your site by clicking on a shortcut and entering the appropriate information.
4 Rock Solid Reasons For Building Your Own Website
What is the point of having a website, you may ask, when the affiliate programme you have joined has provided you with your own web page to promote? This is a fair question. The answer has to be that with your own site - and of course your own domain name - you will have a lot more control over your business. Here are four reasons why you should be grabbing your piece of internet real estate - right now.
In Business? 10 Reasons Why You Need a Website -- Now!
1) Word of Mouth The single most powerful form of new business creation is word of mouth. Your past customers, friends, acquaintances and staff aren't likely to carry your brochure or even your business card everywhere they go. The can however carry your domain name, in their heads! Every time they have a conversation that leads to your kind of business they just quote your simple domain name. You've chosen a simple domain name of course, easily remembered, easily spelt and requiring no explanation. For that reason avoid hyphenated names.
Three Things Every Website Should Do
When I started my company in 2002, I knew I needed to have a website. Why? To provide credibility! How can a company be "real" in this day and age if it doesn't have a website? So, like many companies, I published an informational website that explained "here's who we are, and here's what we do".
Why Local Service Companies Should Have a Website
The Internet is being used by local service business to improve sales today. Sales are improved because a website gives a company more credibility and in some cases generates leads.
Running An Effective Website
Running an effective website is a continuous process. I have compiled five (5) ways of doing it on a regular basis.
Do You And Your Website Have Credibility?
I recently received an unsolicited e-mail from some company offering me their search engine optimization services for $199. Even though I had absolutely no interest in the offer, just out of curiosity, I decided to check out this company with the various search engines.
5 Essential Traits Of A Home Business Website
So you've decided to start an online work at home business and are just beginning to build your website. You probably have a million different ideas for what you want the site to look like. You will want to take into consideration that your idea of a great website may differ drastically from what a website designed to make sales should be like.
The Road to Better Results
A lot has changed in the way sites are optimized for search engines since last year. For one thing, Google is not the only search engine worth looking into anymore; Yahoo has definitely managed to take away some of Google's oomph over the past twelve months. Another important change is that the intelligence of the search engine spiders and algorithms has increased dramatically. So without further ado, I will present you with a standard search engine optimizing process.
Email Addresses in Web Pages
You want to give your site's visitors a way to contact you by email but don't want your emali address to be abused. Here are a few ways to protect your email address when building your website.
The Secret Benefit Of Accessibility: Part 2 - A Higher Search Engine Ranking
An additional benefit of website accessibility is an improved performance in search engines. The more accessible it is to search engines, the more accurately they can predict what the site's about, and the higher your site will appear in the rankings.