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Casual Articles - Making The Business Case For Web Standards
Often vacation resorts are put on islands where the people living there are relatively poor and it is kind of an invasion of the modern world onto their world. Nevertheless a vacation resort can bring lots of money to the island and increase the wealth of those that live there. In doing so this means a greater quality of life and a higher standard of living.However, it must also be considered that once a big vacation resort goes into such a location it changes the dynamics of the community and the local microeconomics forever. For those who work at the vacation resorts they are paid a lot more money than they could receive elsewhere and this means there is a separation of classes nearly immediately.Vacation resorts need to do things for the local Islanders such as help them with schools and education and mitigate any concerns of the local tribal leadership or local government. The efforts of a vacation resort on an island are also ofte
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
I’m always talking about the different strategies that publishers can use to get more people to click their ads. And I’m always saying that there’s one bottom line to all of those strategies: blending the ads into the page so that they look like part of the content... and not something served by some outside advertiser that the reader doesn’t give two hoots about.There are lots of different ways to do that. You can match the colors of the ad to the colors on your site. You can match the fonts used in the ad to the fonts on the site. You can take out the borders so that it’s less clear where the content ends and the ad begins. And you can put the ads where people are going to be looking anyway. That’s just to name a few.All of those things help. But none of them will help if the users don’t trust the content in the first place.Everything we do to boost our income can really be summed up as saying to the user: “Click here. You’ll love
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
In Today’s Vent I’d like to talk about emotional business practice. This is a subject in my network of colleagues that unfortunately has become more popular in the recent months.To determine your action by emotion rather than reason will derail you in seconds away from what you should be focused on. When you run your own business or even work for another company as an Independent Contractor your daily activities should square up your pay or rather what you do and how you conduct yourself will determine your paycheck.I network among very bright individuals in the same field; network marketing. I’ve seen an emotional environment filled with negativity that I’m sure has placed us all back a few steps.We are being sized up by the public eye and whether we like to admit this or not, we make an assessment of one another all the time. Now I’m not suggesting we cannot “tell it like it is!” But in a public environment we should use discretio
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
Everyone has had their fair share of junk email in their inbox. The topics are an entirely eclectic mix--from recommendations to buy stocks to sex performance-enhancing medicines to outright scams. The people behind such spam emails are usually unscrupulous marketers and entrepreneurs out to make a quick buck. But nowadays, even the war mongers have resorted to spamming as a venue to address their deceitful propaganda.One of my most obedient friends recently forwarded an email to me with the subject line reading "Justice", all in uppercase. I consider her very obedient because the moment she sees the phrase "pass this on to all your friends" in the body of the email, she does so without question, brushing aside all dangers that may come to infect her personal computer for the sake of obedience.Normally the emails that I receive from my obedient friend end up in the trash bin. But for some reason I decided to open this one. The email opens
- 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
There are core types of office equipment available for the small business - each type is intended to make your job easier.This short article is intended to introduce you to some of the main types of office equipment, so that you can make a purchasing decision on them:Paper ShreddersPaper shredders are used to destroy paper documents, usually using one of two major methods of shredding.The main reason for shredding paper is to prevent confidential information being retrieved and stolen, such as business operations information. This has made paper shredders relatively common in business use.Fax MachinesA fax machine is specialist piece of office equipment that can scan and print a document, and send a copy over a telephone connection to another fax machine.While most people can send text documents much more easily via e-mail, the one big advantage of fax machines is where d
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
Nobody likes being ripped off – especially if they’re in business.Yet most businesses are paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to their web designer for shoddy, substandard work. Are you?Luckily, there’s a quick and easy way to find out.Go to:http://validator.w3.org, type in your website address and click on the “Check” button.If the page you see says "failed validation" in red writing, you might need to speak to your web designer – especially if there are more than a handful of errors.Is your web designer one of the cowboys? Unless you own a cattle ranch, you probably don’t want to employ cowboys. You certainly wouldn’t put up with substandard work from a builder or electrician, would you? What about an accountant that didn’t understand tax laws, would you want them handing your finances?Well, most web designers produce websites that are shoddy and substandard – and worst of all they don’t
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 us
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