Using Web Standards to Future-Proof Your Website

Web Standards

What are web standards?

Back when website design began you were limited with what you could do . You had to code content, behavior and design elements all on the same page You had one HTML file with many lines of code all containing your layout , content and javascript elements  . This made for some rather large HTML pages and slower page downloads . With the advent of web standards there came a welcome change along with it.

There are three significant elements giving web designers new options and flexibility and new opened doors for some pretty cool new design and functionality options. The first element in web standards is seperating content from layout The second is using semantic markup for all of your content. And lastly seperating out your page behaviors..

When we differentiate content from design what we are doing in essence is leaving meaningful content within the HTML files and using CSS (Cascading Sytle Sheets) to do the work of positioning the content. The take home here is Edit this text  that HTML files should only contain material relevent to content and CSS files should only contain that which is relevant to design and layout . For example, images are not meaningful pieces of content, though they are meaningful to layout and layout . So best practice is to let the CSS drive your image position and layout . When telling your story to your site visitors using your “about us” or “mission” page you would allow the HTML file to tell your story. Allow CSS to dress up your story by applying formatting elements that will do just that.

Semantic markup is about seperating presentation from meaning. Showing what is important about the content you are displaying and what its purpose is. Basic markup includes heading elements represented by <h1> through <h6> tags. Paragraphs of texts should employ the <p> tag showing that it indeed is a paragraph. In essence, think about the meaning of the content you want to get across and mark it up accordingly.

Separating behavior means using unobtrusive Javascript and DOM scripting. When this is done, Javascript commands are for the most part not embedded in the HTML page.

So why should this matter to you?

Why web standards matter

There are myriad benefits to using web standards. Here are some highlights:

It saves you money due to the ease of maintenance. HTML files contain unformatted content , it is quick and easy to change that content. This means that site changes take less time and money.

Improved search engine rankings: Search engines interpret HTML tags semantically – they assume the title is most important, that headings are summaries of the content to follow, and meaningful content is contained in paragraphs, lists, and the like.

Changing the layout is easier: You may want to update your website You have new content or changes in your organization or maybe you want to make your website available to mobile devices. When your site is designed with web standards in mind your site-wide changes become a breeze. Want a different color for your site? Just change one line of code in your CSS and you are done! Want your website to look good on mobile devices? Just use CSS and your website will look good on mobile devices . Designing with web standards in mind will give you many more options to choose from and will allow for fast and easy site-wide changes .

Web standards help future-proof your web site: New web technologies are emerging all the time. With your content separated from both layout and behavior, you will be able to use your content in new ways with technologies that don’t even exist yet. Better to be ready up front than to spend money getting caught with the times up in the future.

Accessibility: Accessibility means making your site available to site visitors using technologies other than visual, large-screen web browsers. Vision impaired surfers may be using screen-reading web browsers. Using web standards makes it much easier to make your content useable in all these cases and also to the most important blind visitor of all -the search engines.

Our Ohio website design firm are believers in web standards. If having a site designed in accordance with web standards is important to you, contact us today.