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Web standards
The use of Web Standards plays an integral part in our ability to deliver work of the highest standards using the latest and leading technologies.
In all industries, standards, regulations and compliance exist in order to ensure that consumers can buy products which they know are safe and of a particular quality. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recognised the need for such regulation within the World Wide Web and, over time, has created what are now known as Web Standards. Web Standards are simply a set of rules and guidelines for those who design and develop websites and use specific technologies that can be accessed by a wider variety of devices than the web technologies previously in place. These include devices such as normal web browsers, screen readers, handheld pda’s, and mobile phones. As Web Standards are not device-specific, they will invariably be accessible from any future devices that come onto the market.
Web Standards are the leading web technology, offering significant benefits over other existing technologies and will become the norm for the industry over the next few years. The commercial benefits will certainly focus businesses on using this technology, but the changes to The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in October 2004 means that websites that do not use Web Standards are not easily accessible by users with disabilities and may be subject to legal action for non-compliance. The RNIB have already sued several websites and forced them to use Web Standards in order to comply with the Act.
Structure – the separation of style and content
Style is the overall look and feel of the website and includes colours, fonts, layouts and certain graphics that are used across the whole website, such as logos and icons. The style of the website is contained in what are known as Cascading Style Sheets, CSS or Style Sheets.
Content is the text and associated graphics, such as photos and illustrations, as well as the overall structure of the site. The structure includes the navigation, the use of titling and headers in a similar way as one would construct a word document. The content of the website is contained in the website´s code which is a technology called XHTML.
In non-Web Standard technologies, the style and content are both contained within the HTML, which means that if any style changes are required across the website, such as colour or font, the web developer needs to alter the HTML of the entire website in every place that code for the specific style occurs (which may be hundreds or even thousands of changes, depending on the size of the website). With the use of (CSS), one change to the colour or font within the CSS will instantaneously make the necessary changes across the website.
A single website can have several different Style Sheets, which can be read by different devices. When connecting to the website, the device automatically knows which Style Sheet to access and will display the site as is appropriate to the device. Style Sheets can also be used to create printer friendly formats within the website.
Creating websites in this way considerably reduces production time, as developers have to use less code in the structure of the website
