Building W3C Compliant Websites

Web standards is the new buzz phrase on the web. What are web standards and why build W3C compliant websites? Web standards are basically the use of correct web coding standards as laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The web standards which are of most concern to modern business are XHTML and CSS coding practices. In the words of the W3C, “The XHTML family is the next step in the evolution of the internet.”

Browser Display

As of September, 2011, Internet Explorer holds 23% of the market. Firefox holds 40%. And Chrome 30%, Safari 4% and Opera 2%. At Savy Agency, we code our sites cross browser compatible for the supported versions of these browsers. Any of these browsers unsupported by Google, e.g. IE7, are not supported by the Savy Agency web development team. As our websites are built to W3 Standards, most times our sites will still display cleanly on these unsupported browsers. Although, you may see some variation in style, alignment and/or functionality.

Screen Resolution and Color

As of the beginning of 2011, 85% of the market is using higher than 1024×768 resolution monitors, 14% is using 1024×768 and 0% is using 800×600 and below. And 97% of the market is using 24 or 32 bits hardware to display 16,777,216 different colors. This means we have flexibility to code into your site the rich and robust colors of your brand. And it means they will display consistently across most browsers, depending of course upon individual screen settings.

Custom Fonts

Savy’s web development team uses custom fonts on the websites we design and develop. The use of custom fonts on web pages have developed over the past two years more than the market had anticipated, however, due to the prevalence of Windows computers on which subpixel rendering is deactivated either by default on Windows XP (screen displays that lack subpixel rendering, sometimes display web fonts at low quality), or by user preference, there is some degree of cross-browser incompatibility for custom fonts. This issue will be fixed in the near future as users replace old hardware and operating systems, upgrade old Windows browsers (Internet Explorer 9 works with a text engine called DirectWrite that delivers significantly improved rendering), and as the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) is established as the standard Web font format.

Web Standards: Real, Tangible Benefits to Business

By moving to a standards-based website, businesses can ensure they have accessible sites which are maintainable and future proofed. Increased customer exposure and search engine prominence can all improve the level of business that comes to you via your website. Web standards are the future of the internet. To ignore them could leave your business trailing behind the online competition. Although finding a design and development company that will construct a standards-compliant site is more difficult than just finding a web designer, the benefits speak for themselves.

But, you’re in luck. The Savy Agency codes to W3 Standards in pure html5 and css3. Our clients seem to be happy, and their results, well, they speak for themselves.

–The Savy Agency Team