Despite the years go by and technology advances by leaps and bounds are still many websites and applications they develop their interfaces to “look pretty” instead of thinking about things like usability and accessibility.
A web application development must not only be such as to meet the requirements requested, but must also provide a user friendly experience. An application can succeed or fail completely because of this. For the particular case of applications with web interfaces, can be divided into two very distinct parts: the server side, where is the hard programming (in languages such as PHP, Java, Python, etc.) and the client side, where used (X) HTML, CSS, Javascript to provide content to users. The latter side is that web browsers interpret and displayed to users. It is also the last side to parse the search engines to index new content and display in search results. This is where standards come into play in the W3C web. We can develop web pages with tables and are going to be really good, or dirty code can fill a page that most visitors will not realize. But we must not only develop to get something nice, but also something functional, affordable, easy to maintain, quick to load and professional.
Structure
Web standards allow us to create documents with a valid structure, coherent and meaningful. Is not the same to create a bold and large that a header h1, although visually identical. A human can interpret the same way, but not the search engines or screen readers used by blind people. Furthermore, by structuring documents correctly, we are creating a document object model (DOM) correct, then we will improve the presentation through style sheets and behavior with Javascript.
Create good structures creates a much cleaner markup then facilitates implementation of server languages, generating a final code much neater and lighter than would be generated with a marked dirty (for example, the use of tables to create layouts).
Compatibility
Web browsers are created based on web standards. They give the browser a set of name tags and how these are used. If we use standard browsers to properly digest the documents generated and show what we really want to show. The lack of standards makes use of browsers interpret Web documents in a ” non-strict “, generating in most cases undesirable behaviors.
In addition, search engines are ready to code properly digest well marked, so a good use of standards allows better reception of content by search engines and this creates a better interpretation. In short, this makes Google and Yahoo better interpret our site and then get better placement in searches and more visits.
Documents Lighter
The proper use of standards to further promote the reuse and code clean and simple. This allows for lighter papers, which singifica to consume less bandwidth and transfer from the server. If we pay a hosting service, they usually limit us these resources, making good use of standards would be very beneficial to us.
A document lighter, is easier to unload and load faster in web browsers. This is a very important point for the use of standards for web design and development.
Accessibility
The web today is a free media access and should all be able to obtain the information it provides. If we use standard, we are allowing people with a disability can receive the content we provide an acceptable manner. This means that the software for such persons can correctly interpret Web documents that we develop.
In some countries, the lack of accessibility of a website is considered as a discrimination case and is fully liable.
Easy maintenance
We have said that using standards creates a cleaner code. This allows an easier to locate and repair problems and extend our applications with minor changes at points. A good use of standards together with good practices can afford to maintain large applications with a few tweaks.
Vision
The standards ensure that our current developments will continue to operate successfully in the future. This occurs because the browsers will be forced at some point to properly interpret the marks generated by the standards and will have to respond correctly to them.
Professionalism
Personally, the first thing I do to convince me if a development is good or bad is to right click mouse in the browser and view the source code of the page I am viewing. This way I can easily recognize a good or a bad design.
When developing for the web, we have to do given our reputation and quality professionals. If we make things look pretty just not going to get very far. The use of standards gives us prestige because we are generating code used with maximum quality and international level.
A developer or web designer that uses standards gives the impression that you are aware of the latest trends and learn about the latest technologies in use. It is important to give this picture to get better jobs.
In addition, using website development standards combined with best practices of usability and accessibility we can be really good to our customers , allowing them to provide simple applications to use and powerful. As I said earlier: an application can succeed or fail by their interfaces (in this case via web).
