Web design is something that I honestly thought I would never be interested in, but I was so wrong! What I never realized is that it greatly appeals to my organized nature. I like everything to have structure and order, and web design allows me to apply that part of my personality when coding. Using web standards, I am able to create something beautiful and structured. Web standards not only make it better for the designer, by keeping code meaningful and organized, but it is the best way to ensure that a site is accessible to everyone, regardless of disability, and consistent over different platforms.
The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C is the group responsible for setting the standards and making the guidelines that should always be followed when creating a web page. First of all, there are three different versions of HTML: Transitional, Strict, and Frameset. Transitional HTML was created to help ‘transition’ from the old to the new. Depreciated elements are allowed, however, they are marked as so to let the writer know they will be excluded from future versions of HTML. Strict HTML is what we are learning to use in class. This is the ideal version of HTML because all of the depreciated elements have been eliminated, allowing HTML to work the way the W3C envisioned. Frameset HTML is used to describe framed elements, however frames are rarely used in web design anymore because of usability and accessibility problems. XHTML or eXtensible HTML was created to be able to mark up any kind of information and content to be shared using and XML language. XHMTL is similar to HTML with the exception that syntax is crucial. Everything must be marked up correctly in order for the page to validate.
When creating a website the first thing you have to do is tell it what kind of document it is. This is done by giving it a DTD or document type definition. There are three different DTD to coincide with the three different versions of HTML. By declaring a DOCTYPE, the browser now knows to display the document in standards mode. You will also need to character encode your document. The most common is UTF-8 because it is a Unicode and includes characters for most languages around the world. After you have marked up your document, you will need to validate it. This ensures that you have followed all of the rules of the DTD declared at the beginning of the document. Valid documents are more accessible, consistent, and are quicker to display.
All of these things are essential for building a web page within web standards. Accessibility is extremely important for companies to consider when building a web page. Everyone needs to be able to access all of the information on a site regardless of disabilities, or what type of device they are using. When a page isn’t properly coded using web standards, a screen reader may not be able to detect what is supposed to be displayed on the page. The consequences can be steep, such as in Target’s case, where they were sued for not having a web page accessible by a screen reader. It is also important simply because, you want as many people as possible to be able to access your information. By following web standards, you can ensure you are not excluding anyone from viewing your web page. Another critical factor to consider is usability. Today there are so many hand-held devices capable of accessing the web, you want to make sure that your page still displays properly at any size on any platform. Even if the page cannot be viewed the exact same as on a full screen, when following web standards and using proper code, the critical information can still be made available.
