Website Standards and W3C Compliance

The same webpage may appear differently to a range of visitors, potentially leaving a very mixed impression... Why?

Browser Variance

Over the years, a range of browser software has been developed by a number of vendors, and they differ slightly in how they interpret the underlying web page code. Additionally, visitors may have a wide selection of add-ons installed or enabled. This has historically been - at best - a challenge and - at worst - the web developer's nightmare.

W3C Standards

Thankfully, standards were introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for developing page code- and compliance with these standards means that visual browsers (mostly) behave in the same way. Thoughtful designers can also develop their pages to ‘graceful degrade’ where certain technologies are not available, so that the intended content is still presented to the user. There are many sites built purely in ‘Flash’ without equivalent degraded versions - these may not display at all on many mobile phone browsers.

Sadly, as with access standards, many web designers are unaware or unconcerned about these issues when building sites- so you're far from guaranteed to receive a properly built site from the agency or individual you've hired.

We design our pages with web standards and accessibility firmly in mind- your visitors will get the experience - and information - that you intend.

We test compatibility in a range of browsers before launch and validate CSS and HTML web code with online tools to ensure you have a standards compliant website.

Additional Benefits of Standards Compliant Web Design

In a similar way to access improvements, adhering to web standards can ensure that your content is readily available to the automated systems employed by search engines, and help you achieve better placements for your keywords- so is a key part of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Compliance will also help ‘future-proof’ your site, so that newer browsers will render it exactly how it was intended to be displayed.

A properly structured site is also easier to maintain and grow, which will make future expansion much more cost-effective.