Web Standards - PAGE 1
Web standards is the term given to the recommendations made by the W3C to ensure the Internet is developed to a high standard. The W3C is the governing body for the Internet and any competent web designer should be designing their web sites in accordance to W3C web standards. In order to understand web standards and their benefits, it is first necessary to learn a little about the Internet. Websites are written in a language called HTML, which a web browser (like Internet Explorer) interprets and then displays the output in the form of a web page. When the Internet became popular in the second half of the 90's, web designers looked for ways of creating visual layouts that could compare with those of printed material.
They soon discovered thatHTML could be manipulated to achieve this, normally by using tables and spacer images. However, HTML was never intended for this purpose. As a result, web designers were forced to use hacks and browser specific tags to achieve the complex layouts they desired. This resulted in invalid, unorganised, messy code and inefficient websites. The concept of valid code and web standards was something that not many people knew about.
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