Building a site with web standards
Why and How to use Web Standards?
1. What are web standards?
“Web standards are intended to be a common base… a foundation for the world wide web so that browsers and other software understand the same basic vocabulary“.
Eric Meyer
Who sets the webstandards?
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standards bodies have established technologies for creating and interpreting web-based content. These ‘web standards’ are carefully designed to:
deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users
ensure the long-term viability of any web document
simplify code and lower the cost of production
deliver sites that are accessible to more people and more types of Internet devices
continue to function correctly as traditional desktop browsers evolve, and as new Internet devices come to market
2. The web standards
Structural Languages
Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0
XHTML 1.1
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0
Presentation Languages
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 1
CSS Level 2
CSS Level 3
Object Models
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 (Core)
DOM Level 2
Scripting Languages
ECMAScript 262 (the standard version of JavaScript)
Additional Presentation Languages (Markup)
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) 1.01
MathML 2.0
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.0
3. What are the benefits of using web standards?
Benefits for you:
Less code means sites are easier to maintain
Less browser specific coding - compatible with current browsers
Less revisiting of old sites - compatible with future browsers
Benefits for your audience:
Less code means sites are faster downloads
More accessible - will work in a wider variety of user agents
4. What do standards mean to web developers?
Web designers and developers should be aim to build sites that use:
Semantic markup
Valid code
Accessible code
Separation of style from content
5. Semantic code
Semantic code uses html elements for their given purpose. Well structured HTML will have semantic meaning for a wide range of users and user agents (browsers without style sheets, text browsers, PDAs, search engines etc.)
In simple terms, this means:
for headings, use heading elements starting with h2
for paragraphs of text, use a paragraph element
for lists, use a list item element
You should use standard HTML elements for your markup and avoid styling HTML elements to look like other HTML elements. For example, avoid styling
1. What are web standards?
“Web standards are intended to be a common base… a foundation for the world wide web so that browsers and other software understand the same basic vocabulary“.
Eric Meyer
Who sets the webstandards?
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standards bodies have established technologies for creating and interpreting web-based content. These ‘web standards’ are carefully designed to:
deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users
ensure the long-term viability of any web document
simplify code and lower the cost of production
deliver sites that are accessible to more people and more types of Internet devices
continue to function correctly as traditional desktop browsers evolve, and as new Internet devices come to market
2. The web standards
Structural Languages
Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0
XHTML 1.1
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0
Presentation Languages
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 1
CSS Level 2
CSS Level 3
Object Models
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 (Core)
DOM Level 2
Scripting Languages
ECMAScript 262 (the standard version of JavaScript)
Additional Presentation Languages (Markup)
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) 1.01
MathML 2.0
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.0
3. What are the benefits of using web standards?
Benefits for you:
Less code means sites are easier to maintain
Less browser specific coding - compatible with current browsers
Less revisiting of old sites - compatible with future browsers
Benefits for your audience:
Less code means sites are faster downloads
More accessible - will work in a wider variety of user agents
4. What do standards mean to web developers?
Web designers and developers should be aim to build sites that use:
Semantic markup
Valid code
Accessible code
Separation of style from content
5. Semantic code
Semantic code uses html elements for their given purpose. Well structured HTML will have semantic meaning for a wide range of users and user agents (browsers without style sheets, text browsers, PDAs, search engines etc.)
In simple terms, this means:
for headings, use heading elements starting with h2
for paragraphs of text, use a paragraph element
for lists, use a list item element
You should use standard HTML elements for your markup and avoid styling HTML elements to look like other HTML elements. For example, avoid styling
elements to look like headings.
6. Why use valid code?
Valid code will render faster than code with errors.
Valid code will render better than invalid code.
Browsers are becoming more standards compliant, and it is becoming increasingly necessary to write valid and standards compliant HTML
7. How do you make your code valid?
Start with the right doctype
Be aware of doctype modes (standards compliant, quirks mode etc)
Use a character set
Close HTML elements
Use alt tags for images
Avoid HTML hacks
Use HTML validators regularly
Fix any bugs you find before you go live
Make validation part of your normal work process
8. What is accessible code?
Allows your site to be accessible to a larger audience (vision impaired, motor skill impaired, cognitive impaired)
Allows your site to be accessed by wider range of devices (hand helds, screen readers, text browsers, search engines)
Is a requirement for Federal and State Government sites
9. How do you make your code accessible?
Provide text equivalent for non-text elements
Use accessible data tables (identify row and column headers)
Use accessible forms (label for, id, fieldset, legend)
Use markup rather than images to convey information.
Provide visible skip menus
Provide access keys
Use style sheets with relative units to control layout and presentation
Make sure documents can be read without style sheets
Provide metadata to add semantic information
10. Separating style from content
Easier to make site-wide changes - one css file rather than all pages
Smaller files/faster download - less code on the page
Less code on the page - easier to code
Allows users to customise to their own needs - style switchers
More control over code - can deliver code in preferred order for screen readers
Files are more accessible to a wider variety of mediums - separate css files for other devices
11. How do you separate style from content?
Decide on a browser support level and code methodology
If full CSS is the chosen methodology, decide on a CSS positioning method
Place content into containing boxes
Use CSS positioning to control layout of containing boxes
Use CSS to control the visual appearance of all html elements
Test on a wide variety of browsers at each stage
6. Why use valid code?
Valid code will render faster than code with errors.
Valid code will render better than invalid code.
Browsers are becoming more standards compliant, and it is becoming increasingly necessary to write valid and standards compliant HTML
7. How do you make your code valid?
Start with the right doctype
Be aware of doctype modes (standards compliant, quirks mode etc)
Use a character set
Close HTML elements
Use alt tags for images
Avoid HTML hacks
Use HTML validators regularly
Fix any bugs you find before you go live
Make validation part of your normal work process
8. What is accessible code?
Allows your site to be accessible to a larger audience (vision impaired, motor skill impaired, cognitive impaired)
Allows your site to be accessed by wider range of devices (hand helds, screen readers, text browsers, search engines)
Is a requirement for Federal and State Government sites
9. How do you make your code accessible?
Provide text equivalent for non-text elements
Use accessible data tables (identify row and column headers)
Use accessible forms (label for, id, fieldset, legend)
Use markup rather than images to convey information.
Provide visible skip menus
Provide access keys
Use style sheets with relative units to control layout and presentation
Make sure documents can be read without style sheets
Provide metadata to add semantic information
10. Separating style from content
Easier to make site-wide changes - one css file rather than all pages
Smaller files/faster download - less code on the page
Less code on the page - easier to code
Allows users to customise to their own needs - style switchers
More control over code - can deliver code in preferred order for screen readers
Files are more accessible to a wider variety of mediums - separate css files for other devices
11. How do you separate style from content?
Decide on a browser support level and code methodology
If full CSS is the chosen methodology, decide on a CSS positioning method
Place content into containing boxes
Use CSS positioning to control layout of containing boxes
Use CSS to control the visual appearance of all html elements
Test on a wide variety of browsers at each stage
