More Important Than Web Standards
September 23, 2003 | 
32 Comments
Let me preface this post by saying that I feel that Web standard development is very important and that it’s a methodology that I would highly recommend any and every Web developer use.
The other day I got an email from one of my readers (who gave my permission to quote and will remain nameless) who wasn’t at all happy with me. He was concerned that I don’t practice what I preach. To quote him:
…you tell us to use Web standards, yet you do not use them properly yourself. Your pages, aren’t tableless and you have validation errors all over the place. You use Flash, which isn’t a standard. Your site isn’t semantically correct either. How can you talk about something you don’t even use yourself?
There is more, but that is the gist of it. He is absolutely right for the most part. This site doesn’t validate. It’s not 100% standard. It’s not exactly semantically correct. It is tableless, but I digress. The thing is I am fully aware of and understand all of the above “issues” and I don’t feel they need to be addressed.
I could go on and explain why this site doesn’t validate and all the rest, but that is all really beside the point. I’m an advocate for Web standards, but I also live and work in the real world and there are times when they aren’t practical, and in the case of this Web site, they conflict with other goals I’ve laid out. Without getting any more defensive of my site, let me get to the main point of this post.
In my opinion, at this point in time and for the foreseeable future, Web standards, in and of themselves, have very little to do with the success, or lack thereof, of a Web site.
Web standards can help, and go hand-in-hand with everything else that makes a site a success. They’re a big part of a good, professional Web development process. However, it takes much more than Web standards to insure a successful Web site. I would also assert that whether or not a site is tableless or validates, in general, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the success of a Web site.
Here is a list of some things that I feel are more important than Web standards:
- Clear, concise and measurable goals
- A solid information architecture
- Clean, functional and user-centered design
- Well thought-out, audience appropriate content
- Interaction with your users/readers
There are probably more, but I think I’ve backed up my point. There is so much talk about Web standards and all that goes along with it that I feel like some people are not getting it and placing way to much value on things like validation, tableless design and semantics. These things are great, but there is much more to building and maintaining a quality Web site than just those standards and the extent to which they are taken. By themselves they are nothing more than a placebo of sorts.
A 100% valid, semantic and tableless site can still be a complete and utter failure.
Web standards are a small piece to a rather large puzzle. I imagine there are folks that don’t agree with me, and that’s understandable. I feel like there is no one right way to do things. So, let me know what you think and what you feel is important to a successful Web site.
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. JTG Mark said:
Hi Doc,
there’s a lot of exuberance around web standards (and I like it :-P ). That’s undeniable. Sometimes exuberance carries misunderstandings. Standards need time to be assimilated by, at least, a big part of web designers. At that time they will be taken for granted and will be clear that they’re just a “tool”, a nice a interesting tool, that can be used even to reach goals, build a solid architecture and so on.
Posted on September 23, 2003 08:34 AM | #
2. Scrivs said:
After reading so many posts about web standards and writing one myself my head is beginning to spin. All I can say is that the good thing about web standards is that you don’t need them to build your site, but once you do build your site you can begin tweaking it so that it follows standards.
It is challenging to follow all of the standards because there are a lot. However, once you do accomplish your “list of things that are more important than standards” I do believe it is important to focus your site on standards. Being how this is a personal site maybe it is not as important as a commercial site to focus on standards, but you must agree that actions speak louder than words.
Great post that made me think Keith.
Posted on September 23, 2003 09:06 AM | #
3. Keith said:
I agree with you, and to say this site isn’t standards focused would be wrong. It is for the most part. But I get your point.
It’s not really standards that I feel people are missing the boat on, it’s the fact that a site can be standards focused and still, say, not validate. Last time I checked the W3C’s validator doesn’t use my site. It doesn’t like the way I deliver Flash, for example. I say, so what?! ;)
Also, while I do believe it’s important to focus on standards from a development standpoint (have a FOCUS article in the works about that) I don’t think it’s 100% necessary, nor is it a guarantee of success, on a commercial or a personal site.
Look at Amazon.
Posted on September 23, 2003 09:15 AM | #
4. Mike H said:
It is my understanding that web standards facilitate the items that are in your ‘More Important’ list. (I’ve changed it into an ordered list and given my thoughts below):
1. I thought standardization was one of these goals.
2 & 3. By seperating content from style, it would be easier to maintain a solid information architecture on all levels. When making updates, one does not have to worry about even touching the content, or the way the content is obtained (breadcrumb trails, sitemaps, etc..)
4. Obviously the most important part of a website. However, i think one thing has been overlooked in all the talk of web standards. While csszengarden.com is an amazing example of what is possible with all this, take note that no corporate sites have implemented this. One reason is because their content changes so rapidly that it must employ new techniques to deliver the content. Another reason is becasue they have a corporate identity. Why would they have to redesign anything?
5. Standardization will facilitate the use of News Readers (RSS) and screen readers (and other accessibility features), thus increasing your audience…
While web standards may not be as important as content, it does go hand in hand with the rest of your list. Your list increases the need for web standards.
Posted on September 23, 2003 09:20 AM | #
5. Sasa said:
I agree with all of your points. Nevertheless I think one should strive for perfecting both to a degree where no _feature_ is compromising the other. By both I mean the the really important issues and the standards ;)
Posted on September 23, 2003 09:41 AM | #
6. Gabe da Silveira said:
Well, I have to admit getting a bit overzealous about standards as of late, mostly due to the fact that I haven’t been doing much work outside my job where only now are we beginning to break away from Netscape 4.
I understand that sometimes compromise is necessary, and I agree that standards for standards sake is a bit of a red herring.
For my upcoming personal site, I am going 100% XHTML and CSS for layout. Not for the currently popular reasons of semantic purity (which is impossible anyway), but because of the more immediate and practical benefits of lightweight pages, easier site management, and forward compatibility. I’ve consciously made the decision to forego Netscape 4 presentation and create something that I can feel proud of moving forward. But the only reason this works is because I have a personal interest in doing so. If I were under a deadline to produce a Web site, corners might need to be cut, and the Web site would need to be cleaned up for display in the client’s browser as a first priority.
Still, I will pay homage to standards not just for immediate benefit, but also in an attempt to tilt the scales in favor of browsers that provide the best support for standards. I feel this is the only way forward for the industry which was fast approaching a dead-end in terms of technology.
Posted on September 23, 2003 03:14 PM | #
7. Karl Dubost said:
hmmm there’s something, I do not understand in your demonstration.
I agree that all the points you describe are completely orthogonal to Web standards. For example, the fact that Web Standards do not make necessary a successful Web site. We could argue, what means successful, but that’s another point.
I have a question if you think that your UI goals, your information organization, etc is good… What are the reasons which stop you to use the standards on top of that?
Posted on September 23, 2003 03:28 PM | #
8. Dan Cederholm said:
Mark H - your point #4: “…While csszengarden.com is an amazing example of what is possible with all this, take note that no corporate sites have implemented this.”
This isn’t true. Many commercial sites have started using web standards with CSS-based layouts. I speak from experience when I say that going this route has real world benefits.
Jeffrey Zeldman has a nice roundup of some commercial sites that have redesigned using web standards.
There are others as well. It works for companies too.
Posted on September 23, 2003 03:45 PM | #
9. Keith said:
Karl, It’s not that I think you shouldn’t use Web standards, quite the contrary. I guess what I’m getting at here is that at times it’s just not practical to say, go tableless, or make sure every page validates. It’s not the standards I have a problem with, it’s the geeky, religious zealousness (is that even a word?) that seems to be popping up all over the place. There are lots of ways to improve a Web site.
I worry that some developers place standards over other, more important goals is all. I’m not arguing against Web standards folks, I’m just questioning the value of placing them above everything else that goes into a successful Web site.
On this site I use Flash, which is not a Web standard. I know there are methods to deliver Flash and have your XHTML validate, but I wonder what the benefit is. This is a small, but heavily used and well liked feature. It in no way causes a barrier to entry or an accessibility problem, except may to itself, which I can live with. A user can easily ignore it if they so choose.
It also doesn’t validate. I’m wondering why I should care about that.
Another example: At work I have to deal with 3rd party code and a CMS, these are far from Web standard and I have no control over them whatsoever. In order to easily integrate with the look and feel I built the top level menus with a valid XHTML table-based layout. It works fine, on their systems and mine. Should I take the time to build a separate tableless layout as well for the part of the site I control? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
Posted on September 23, 2003 04:02 PM | #
10. patrick h. lauke said:
unfortunately discussions about “semantically correct” and 100% pure standards-compliance almost invariably end up turning into near-religious zealots bashing each other. let’s not even get started on the “if you’re not sending application/xhtml+xml you’re not doing xhtml” issue either…
Posted on September 23, 2003 05:15 PM | #
11. Chad Brandos said:
Web standards and semantics are great. But if there is a lack of content, what is the point?
Posted on September 23, 2003 05:43 PM | #
12. Egor Kloos said:
I have to agree with you on this one Keith. The success of a site is based many things but not on webstandards. They’re just a part of healthy living. A lack of webstandards can be unhealthy and stunt a site’s growth. But sick men can be successful. Just like my proverbial uncle who is ninety and smoked all his life, no flies on him. Well maybe just a few, not living by the webstandards will do that to you.
Success for a website can be driven by strong branding, well targeted marketing and the right product. And that’s all done before the visual design stage never mind the application of webstandards. Success is measured by the obtaining of goals that have been set out for or by the stakeholders. Not by how well the vehicle of success is built.
Posted on September 23, 2003 06:02 PM | #
13. Josh said:
Good article Keith, i have to agree with chad also.
Posted on September 23, 2003 11:50 PM | #
14. Josh said:
BTW is it just me or does it take 30 seconds to post(I have DSL).
Posted on September 23, 2003 11:52 PM | #
15. Mike H said:
Dan Cederholm: While its true that sites have switched to the “standards” format, how many have actually put it to good use? My point was this: How many commercial sites have been able to do a complete redesign without touching the code?
Maybe its too early-on in this evolution, but I don’t see any of this yet… i dont think its practical.
Posted on September 24, 2003 06:08 AM | #
16. zeldman said:
We don’t judge films on their number of frames per second, but if every film projected at a different speed, not everyone could watch the same movies. A beautiful, important film might become obsolete once projectors finally standardized on a frame rate. It would be a shame to miss a great movie because your local theater’s projector used a different frame rate than the film. It would be a tragedy to lose a great movie forever because of its nonstandard technical implementation.
The issues are access and preservation.
Using markup and style sheets correctly doesn’t make your site compelling, attractive, well-written, or easy to navigate, and nobody claims it does. Building with standards is simply a baseline. Who claims it is more than that?
Why do some designers talk about it so much? Because they are waking up to the benefits and possibilities after a decade of non-standard methods and non-compliant browsers.
How can the possibility of building sites correctly and having them function and display correctly threaten any designer? It’s like being upset about Pantone or NTSC. “A lot of people are talking about NTSC, but I think a television show needs good scripts and good actors.” How are these things mutually exclusive?
Posted on September 24, 2003 07:03 AM | #
17. Ethan said:
I think there’s an additional benefit to the “standards-as-baseline” formula that Zeldman mentions: namely, validation takes a lot of the guesswork (and consequently, a lot of the time) out of UI development in a team development environment. I’ve participated in a number of projects where frequent validation ensured that the code that went into production was error-free, and required less post-launch scurrying to hammer out the stray display issue.
‘Course, I’ve been on just as many projects where there wasn’t enough validation, but I digress. ;)
Posted on September 24, 2003 08:32 AM | #
18. Keith said:
Good points all. Zeldman, I totally agree with you that these things are not mutually exclusive, but the fact is, and the reason for this post, is I often feel that many folks treat them as though they are (case in point - all the email I get about validation errors), and in my mind that misses the point of Web standards and any other Web design best practice I can think of.
All I’m saying is that standards alone don’t make a site successful.
All the points made are valid. Using standards as a base line should be one of the Web development goals of any site, but as we all know, those goals have to be balanced against various other goals at times.
My freelance site is tableless and almost 100% valid. The Flash piece on the homepage throws it off. Why did I go with Flash there? Because often clients ask for it. I tried to do it in an unobtrusive way, but at the same time I wanted to feature that I have that skill. In this case I balanced the use of Flash against having a 100% valid, standards based site.
I could have used workarounds to make that part valid I suppose, but I’m a busy guy, I have a full time job and lots of projects going on so I balanced my “time and effort” goals against a 100% valid, standards based site and decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
I hope I’m not sounding defensive here, I’m just trying to site examples. In this case I think my site is pretty well set up for “access and preservation.” I replace the Flash with an image, or otherwise rework the homepage and, POW!, I’m good to go.
Posted on September 24, 2003 09:10 AM | #
19. Jason said:
In my opinion, the focus on web standards when designing & developing a website, if nothing else, makes you approach both better.
Arguably, content is what truly makes a website, as that can be seen by any number of popular sites out there that have no concept of standards.
However, irregardless of validation or the use and misuse of Flash or even accessibility, design with these things in mind makes for a better web experience for all.
Posted on September 24, 2003 12:41 PM | #
20. Adrian said:
Holistic web design, all there is too it ;)
Web standards on their own, do a successful web site not make. They are an aspect of it though.
http://www.camaban.co.uk/rant_holistic.php
Posted on September 25, 2003 03:05 PM | #
21. Robert Wellock said:
It depends about what you mean by web standards; should not the OSI Seven-Layer Model have been accessed by the user-agent you are on now, you wouldn’t have received this document.
Albeit it is true that many well-marketed websites do not have to relay upon using fully interoperable technologies - with regards to markup syntax and mainstream browser usage to gather a large following of viewers.
Predictably the average user couldn’t care less what technology you use as long as the end product is easily accessible to them, informative and presented in a clear manner. Though as stipulated it good practice to follow such standards when authoring websites.
Posted on September 26, 2003 02:34 AM | #
22. Nigel Peck said:
A bit off topic but last time I checked the TCP/IP stack was only loosly fitted to the OSI Seven-layer model.
TCP/IP only has 4 layers for a start.
In fact I don’t think there are any protocols that use it properly other than the protocol the OSI Protocol (which nobody uses).
Not sure what this means (if anything!) in relation to Web standards but thought I’d mention it :)
Cheers,
Nigel
Posted on September 26, 2003 06:04 AM | #
23. Matt Dockerty said:
I understand your point here but the way the standards are breached on this page is a little dangerous.
If you switch Mozilla into XML parsing mode by serving this page as application/xhtml+xml you will probably notice it does not display at all which is the correct course of action for an invalid XML/XHTML document.
It is reasonably possible that a future web server would decide to serve the correct MIME type by reading the top line of the output, which would break the site.
Because this is becoming pretty widespread, future versions of browsers and supporting technologies such as XSLT/XML DOM may need to sacrifice their speed and simplicity by implementing a sloppy XML parser. The alternative being that the browser will not work with a range of existing Web sites.
If following standards doesn’t make much sense for this project I would recommend losing the doctype. A HTML 4 doctype would be equally illegal but safer if you need to force the browser into standards-compliant rendering mode.
Posted on September 26, 2003 08:24 AM | #
24. Keith said:
Matt, I understand what you are saying and still I’m not at all worried about that. My site could very easily be made valid in the event I needed to do so. At this point in time, and for the forseeable future, this is something I don’t have to worry about. This site works as intended pretty much accross the board.
The problems you state are fairly easily taken care of if needed. My content, which in effect is is marked up correctly, should outlive any possible rework I’ll need to do. That is what matters to me.
Look, I understand Web standards, 95% of this site is coded with them in mind and I fully know and understand the shortcomings I’ve got and how, if needed, to take care of them.
The Web is evolving, Web standards are a huge part of it, and if a site doesn’t go to standards it can be in for a shaky future, but a site that has no valuable content, no interaction with it’s users, no clear goals, etc. might have no future.
Posted on September 26, 2003 09:18 AM | #
25. JC said:
Of course, HTML 3 is a standard, too. Both browsers and servers will have to remain able to parse that standard as well as XHTML.
People keep talking about XHTML and tableless CSS based design making things easier to update and maintain. That’s perhaps valid if you’ve hardcoded all your pages anyway, but on most sites I do, everything is templated with FuseBox, if I want to change the look-and-feel of the site, I change one file. If I want a printable version, I have a second template file. The content for the site is either in a database or in display files which contain only that content and are viewed through the template.
Tables or no, there’s nothing very complicated about updating that.
The primary ‘benefit’ of the web standards debate seems to be twofold: Helping force out the blight that is Netscape 4.x; and earning geek cred with the other ‘standards === xhtml+tableless CSS layout’ zealots.
There are some nifty things you can do with that, sure, but nothing that spectacular. I use them on occasion, when warranted, but it’ll be a few years before I really push them on any client who’s selling things. I’d rather hear “this guy using netscape 4 bought that audi that was on the site for 3 months!” than “we got a nasty email from some guy using Netscape 4, he was going to buy that audi but our site doesn’t work in his browser”
Newer standards are nice, but money is why businesses have websites. It’s an evolution, and you can’t force evolution on people. I’ll use CSS for formatting of text and so forth, but if it’s a big company site or a site selling things, that design is going to be in tables, not divs. With a mention that they should consider moving to an updated design in a few years, to be sure, but I’m not going to risk my client’s potential sales to satisfy my ego as a coder or some ‘standard’ that’s still not perfect from one browser to the next.
I’m not above sticking a little “you should upgrade” note for netscape 4 people with the display:none class attached to it, though. :-)
Posted on September 26, 2003 03:19 PM | #
26. JC said:
And by the way… a pet peeve of mine…
“If you switch Mozilla into XML parsing mode by serving this page as application/xhtml+xml you will probably notice it does not display at all which is the correct course of action for an invalid XML/XHTML document.”
Isn’t that really stupid? Isn’t this why quirks mode exists? Hey, let’s punish the user/customer for daring to download our browser and attempt to use it to access a page with one misplaced quotation mark!
If you go to a malformed page in IE, it attempts to render it. Moz should do the same. Maybe for the purists, show an error message first with a link like “Malformed page error. Try viewing in quirks mode?”
And Keith can make the site into perfect XHTML, but all it’d take is one comment with malformed code to kill it, unless of course the submission page filtered perfectly for every possible violation.
That sort of blind devotion to all-or-nothing is a little silly, isn’t it?
Posted on September 26, 2003 03:25 PM | #
27. Nigel Peck said:
It’s a fair point JC but there must be a way round completely abusing everything XML stands for, how about a Validating Apache Module?
http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=2213#2213
Cheers,
Nigel
Posted on September 28, 2003 08:04 PM | #
28. Nigel Peck said:
Try that link again:
http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=2213#2213.
Posted on September 28, 2003 08:07 PM | #
29. Gez said:
I think your idea of a validating Apache module would be useful for developers who don’t validate each page, and aren’t really that bothered about the page validating. In which case, would that developer really be bothered about content being delivered with the correct MIME type? If the answer to that question is yes, and they would address the standard later, then the answers really in the issue that JC raises in the first place. View your pages in Mozilla before making them live. It’s a really quick and useful method of making sure everything you publish validates. If you use tools to generate content (such as a comment system), make sure it generates valid content.
Posted on September 29, 2003 05:50 AM | #
30. Rob Collyer said:
Web Design Standards are what we are all striving to adhere to. Until there is far reaching browser support for the latest standards adhering to them becomes an all to frequent no-no for a lot of developers (Myself NOT included)
The thing about web standards, is that when browsers catch up to them, most of the time, the standards have moved on.
I personally think the biggest single thing someone can do to help the browser / web standards incompatability issue, is to ditch Internet Explorer, and go for mozilla firefox(1st choice) or opera as these seem to keep up with standards better than anything else.
We should all agree that these little ‘valid xhtml’ , ‘valid css’ buttons are popping up all over the web and spreading like wildfire, but I dont think compliance based design is moving fast enough for the liking of anyone in this industry, and I do lay blame at the door of Internet Explorer.
I take my hat of to Dean Edwards, who has strived hundreds of hours to make Internet Explorer 5.5+ compatible with CSS 2.0, but cant help thinking this support should be built right inside the product itself! Dean’s alpha release of IE7, is what a lot of have been waiting for, and whats more using it is just a simple matter of a one line include in your code.
Posted on September 8, 2004 05:08 AM | #
31. Drinnon Ettienne said:
This is amazing, compliments
Posted on November 4, 2005 06:40 AM | #
32. Arnold Chow said:
Focus on usability and the people to use the web site is more important than any so called standard. This is something the browsers have to fix amongst each other
Posted on January 30, 2006 04:36 PM | #
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