Posts Tagged ‘guidelines’

Standards compliance

Monday, May 26th, 2008

In many discussions with various developers I have heard the term ‘standards compliance’ used very loosely to, usually, denote the idea that (X)HTML code of web pages on a given web site validate against a W3C validator of some sort.

Unfortunately, I would not consider simply just a W3C (X)HTML compliant web site in any way standards compliant today at all. At best, (X)HTML code validity is a fairly good first step towards achieving ‘standards compliance’.

Here is a quick insight into different grades of standards compliance which I would consider as required, relevant and highly recommended for implementation on every web based project.

Good standards compliance

Better standards compliance

Much better

  • Include all the above steps, and also
  • Use microformats wherever possible
  • Ensure at least AA accessibility compliance
  • Ensure graceful degradation of the code (especially JavaScript)
  • Make sure your pages are below 100Kb in size by all means

Best

  • All of the above, but also
  • Make sure the web site is usable (not just accessible) within a screen reader, which should also mean that the web site is easily usable for normal users without use of a mouse
  • Create site architecture which is SEO ready from the outset (including pretty URLs)
  • Ensure compatibility with future browsers/clients (mobile phones, playstations and small laptops)
  • Ensure that the overall solution is very consistently implemented, including common approach to component coding, clear and concise reusable site portions, etc.
  • Ensure (re)use of commonly recognised and well adopted UI design patterns
  • Code with future compatibility in mind, so as to ensure forward compatibility with emerging technologies and new versions of web browsers

The above check list is by no means definite, final or full, but it is a good starting check point to ensure that the end product of a web site is of high quality and fit for the web of today and evenly reaches all types of users hitting your web site day to day.

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Use W3C as reference for semantics

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

I find it astonishing to see how many developers create their own sense of modern web technologies based on various snippets of information they gather from all around the web.

Unfortunately information nowadays usually comes from amateur developers with too much spare time to spend on forums and various mailing lists, but not enough time spent trying to implement solid, scalable and useful semantic solutions.

The best place to learn about semantics from is, of course, W3C, which is the closest thing to ‘standards’ we have on the web.

I have had a privilege to work directly for an organisation which is an active member of W3C and have been forced to think about pros and cons of (X)HTML and its implementations and definitions.

This experience has taught me to reference the documentation as often as I need to.

Remember, no-one is expected to know everything off by heart, but at the same time you should not make up solutions based on your gut feelings, unless you are 100% sure about what you are talking about.

W3C is contributed to by very talented engineers and people from world’s leading corporations (i.e. Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc.), who know what they are talking about and have experience working on truly global web-based projects.

Chances are that (however sceptical you might be about each one of these companies) these people know a thing or two about what is happening on the Web and what ought to be happening in the future for the good of us all.

Once you try to propose something a little more meaningful towards a W3C specification you soon become aware of the real strengths and weaknesses of your proposal and work out that it might be useful for you, but not necessarily for the entire world, which is the whole point of Web technologies and the Web itself.

In order not to be preaching any further I find it very useful to refer to the following documents as often as it is necessary:

Using just those three documents as much as possible will get you very far in the world of semantics and proper UI web developement.

I have been studying them for many years now and some subtle points from those documents still strike me as very interesting and wise even today.

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Posted in Intermediate, Overview | No Comments »