Designing with web standards

“Web standards” are getting a lot of attention nowadays as developers are finally recognising their importance in the web design world.

Imagine if you’d bought a new car that came with 147 minor faults and, although your shiny new car goes, those faults stop you getting the best performance - you wouldn’t be very happy! Using the web standards recommended by W3C is the core of web design that means your sites pages are optimised for the best performance.

Designing and building sites with standards simplifies and lowers the cost, and at the same time esnures sites are accessible to more people and types of devices. Sites developed using standards will continue to function correctly as web browsers evolve.

The benefits for your sites visitors

• Files and pages download faster
• Your site is accessible to wide range of users (including visitors with disabilities)
• Accessible to wide range of devices (screen readers, browsers, PDA’s, search robots)
• Provides print friendly versions for all pages

The benefits for you the site owner

• Cheaper hosting costs
• Better search engine ranking
• Easier to maintain
• Content can be restyled easily without changing code
• Improves accessibility

• Accessibilty and usability
• Search engine optimisation
• Designing with web standards