Benefits of Web Standards
Accessibility — A standards compliant website is on the pathway to being an accessible website. Web standards incorporate and support accessibility compliance ensuring people with special needs can use the web more easily. For example, blind people may have their computer read pages to them, or people with poor eyesight may have pages rearranged and magnified for easier reading.
By making your site accessible to millions of people affected by disabilities, you can increase your customer base significantly. Additionally, accessible sites in many jurisdictions are mandated by law, the European Union being one.
Visibility & Improved User Experience — Websites designed with non standard code can be impossible for people to access when using less common browsers or devices. These sites are not fully functional, can appear distorted or in code or are not able to perform desired actions.
Web standards allows your webpage content to be accessed by various browsers and devices from hand-held devices such as a mobile phone or PDA to a high end computer. It also allows your website to function with future technologies, saving time on updating your website to cater for each new device. A standards compliant website is available to all web users increasing your potential customer base.
Faster Page Loads — Standards compliant code is clear and simple which lowers the file size (page weight) of web pages. This results in pages that load faster, giving your users a better, stress free experience.
Lower Bandwidth Usage — You pay for bandwidth to deliver your information to your audience. By reducing any unnecessary information your website sends you can lower these costs. Studies have shown that using modern, standards-based design methods can reduce the weight of a site by 25% to 50%.
Ease of Maintenance — Web standards encourage the separation of structure and presentation, which allows site wide changes to be made by editing a single style sheet. Without standards, the same change would have to be made on every page of the site, making simple changes a costly and time consuming process.
Compatibility & Upgradeability — A site or application that is written to a standard, uses a well defined technology that can be easily checked for compatibility with other products. Applications that use non standard code can tie a company into using that application’s technology because it is difficult and expensive to find compatible products or technologies.
Future Growth & Longevity — All web standards are designed to work together with future growth in mind. Investing standards compliance in your web development projects allows room to grow and adapt to future needs, increasing the long term viability of the website.
Owner Flexibility — Any web designer with knowledge of the standards specifications should be able to take over a standards compliant site and continue without having to unravel and decipher non standard code introduced by previous authors.
