Why Standards?
A train track gauge story
semantically meaningful mark-up
separating content/presentation
The international standard, ISO 9241-11, provides guidance on usability and defines it as:
The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
In the life of a Web site, the user (consumer) can be:
end user
designer
developer
bots/Web agents
user agents
faster downloads / bandwidth savings
Evaluating Elisabeth.com (with permission from Creative Good )
consistency in document structure, display & interface
maintainability
accessibility
extensibility
In short, money and effort
(support in software not 100%)
(learning curve)
These are perceived disadvantages.
validation
throwing out pixel-perfect and absolute designs
ensure your tools support standards
configure your tools to support standards
demand standards-compliant sites from your contractors
define a process to improve the quality of your Web site
How to configure Dreamweaver MX to output XHTML
The Web Standards Project
MACCAWS - Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Netscape Strategy Central
Buy standards compliant Web sites
Web Standards Switch
Tara Cleveland: tara@taracleveland.com
Stephanie Troeth: steph@unadorned.org
More information at:
http://titanium.dstc.edu.au/xml/jacksvg/