IDEA No 35
WEB STANDARDS
Web standards are the technical specifications recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Their purpose is to increase the accessibility, usability and interoperability of the Web.
An Event Apart is a conference that promotes standards-based web design.
A website complying with web standards uses accessible HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Full compliance also covers such attributes as character sets, RSS feeds, metadata, XML and the embedding of objects and scripts.
Since 2004, to comply fully with web standards, HTML should also follow semantic guidelines. This means complying with the W3C Resource Description Framework (RDF), the standard for data interchange across the Web. RDF facilitates the merging of data, even if the structure of that data differs. The framework enhances web links beyond blind signposts, to describe the relationship between linked items.
By contrast with proprietary languages, web standards are open. They can be implemented on a broad range of platforms and devices. As stated on the W3C website, web standards are designed ‘to deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users while ensuring the longterm viability of any document published on the Web.’
This might seem non-controversial. Today, with a few notable exceptions, web standards are widely adopted. However, this has not always been the case. In 1998, the browser wars were at their peak (see Web Browser). In an effort to differentiate themselves, Netscape and Microsoft’s browsers were diverging from their common roots, each creating bespoke elements of HTML. Release by release, they were becoming less compatible. Website owners found themselves having to make two versions of every site, and developers had to learn two sets of protocols.
In response, three high-profile web personalities – Glenn Davis, George Olsen and Jeffrey Zeldman – formed the Web Standards Project (WaSP). Its purpose was to campaign for common standards across browsers. As their mission statement declared, ‘Support of existing W3C standards has been sacrificed in the name of innovation, needlessly fragmenting the Web and helping no one. Our goal is to support these core standards and encourage browser makers to do the same, thereby ensuring simple, affordable access to Web technologies for all.’ They were largely successful. By 2001, the leading browsers were on their way to compliance. WaSP then shifted its focus to improving the compliance of code created by authoring tools such as Dreamweaver. In 2006, its job done, WaSP disbanded.
Thanks to the tenacity of W3C and WaSP, Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the Web as an open, universal space is largely the reality. Happily, ‘Best viewed with …’ is a thing of the past.■
Portrait of Jeffrey Zeldman, founder of the email newsletter A List Apart and co-founder of the Web Standards Project (WaSP).