Posted by : Tom Doyle in (Internet & Computers) 7th Oct, 2008
Where do I stand on web coding standards?
Tagged Under : Accessibility, Cascading Style Sheets, Design, HTML, Search engine optimization, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Web design, Web search engine, Website, World Wide Web
In my business, I’m constantly involved in debates on a regular basis discussing how important developing websites to the latest coding standards actually is.
In most cases, people expect me to be a huge fan of the latest W3C web coding standards. A lot of these people believe that all professional web design agencies should do nothing less than provide my clients with websites coded to the latest web standards.
However the reality is, that although I completely believe in the concept of having web coding standards and that it is for the common good and the future of the Internet, I’m not convinced that every website has to be developed to the latest coding standards right now.
Those that think it is the only way to do websites now are generally egotistical snobs who like to brag about being able to produce standards compliant websites.
I think it’s time to cut out the b*llshit.
Let’s look at the arguments most pro-standards compliant supporters use to justify their cause.
- Sites coded to the latest coding standards perform better in the Search Engines
This statement is simply untrue. A site can perform just as well developed in the old fashioned way as it can in the new way.But with all statements related to this topic, it was taken completely out of context and made a fact by those that didn’t really understand what it meant.
The truth is simple, a properly coded CSS based, compliant standard website should have less code than your old table based website. In theory a search engine should be able to pick up the important content of your website more easily, since there is less code. However, a clean coded website in the old fashioned way can do just the same too.
- Quicker and more flexible
In some cases you can agree with this, but in others you can’t. There are a few things that can be done quickly in HTML that take an age in CSS, but this goes both ways. So I don’t think it’s fair to use this as an argument for the cause.Another argument is that CSS based sites download quicker… that too is highly debatable and comes down to how well a site is coded. Here’s a recent study : http://www.decloak.com/Dev/CSSTables/CSS_Tables_02.aspx
The fact is that in theory a CSS based site will have less code, so it should be a smaller file size. In turn this should relate to a faster download. I completely agree with that.
However, if the site is badly coded and uses unnesseccary code, it will be the same amount of code as the old way.
- Accessibility & Cross Browser Compatibility
This is one that really gets to me. Most people that use this as an argument don’t really understand what accessibility actually means. So just for you, here’s WikiPedia definition of accessibility:“Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product (e.g., device, service, environment) is accessible by as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the “ability to access” the functionality, and possible benefit, of some system or entity.”
My only issue with wikipedias definition is the highlighted part. Accessibility is about access for all (http://www.sustainable-design.ie/arch/adapthouse.htm) not just a few people.
So unless your site is nearly completely text based, your website will not work in old browsers. Have a look at a browser compatibility chart : http://vzone.virgin.net/sizzling.jalfrezi/stylebml.htm
For me, it is more impressive for a web developer to have his website work well in all browsers than someone who can just code for the latest browsers.
To date, most webmasters base their website accessibility test on W3C’s WCAG 1.0, which are just that, guidelines. How many web designers that claim to be 100% accessible have actually sat down with someone who has activity limitations? I would imagine very very little.
Instead, they use a program to test how well their site is coded. Webmasters being webmasters, have spent years hacking their code to work in different browsers, so you can imagine how easy it is to trick a piece of software that just looks for dodgy code. In theory you could have an inaccessible website, that will pass this test, yet it could be claimed to be accessible. Thankfully WCAG 2.0 will focus more on the actual accessibility rather than the websites code.
On and just to add more to this argument, you can create an accessible website no matter which route you take in terms of coding standards.
With our clients, we’ll continue to give them the pro’s and con’s of each different techniques. It must be noted that a lot more people care more now about the latest coding standards than working in older browsers.
The change is coming, so make sure you evaluate all issues before deciding on which route to take your website. Both ways have equal pro’s and con’s associated with them.
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My site was recently linked to yours via Zemanta. In my post, I talked about accessibility being something that should be designed for up front.
The only good reason to not use standards-based design is when you and your clients care only how the page looks visually.
However, your arguments completely miss the point of standards-based design.
1. Search engines today look at more than just key-words. They look at the semantics and context of a document and rely on proper markup to interpret the data in the document itself.
Markup and stylesheets separate structure and design for a reason. A markup language gives the computer the ability to classify otherwise meaningless information in a text document. HTML wasn’t necessarily designed to format a page so much as to tell a computer what parts of a plain-text document are paragraphs, lists, and tables. Stylesheets are what we use now to visually represent that data.
It’s not the standards that are at fault — it’s the browser developers who implement those standards.
2. If you know CSS well, then this is true. A quick trip to the css zen garden will prove beyond a doubt that using the same markup, a good designer can change the visual layout drastically in almost infinite ways without touching the HTML structure.
3. Accessibility, yes. Cross-browser compatibility is more tricky.
I don’t have to say much about accessibility, my post on it says it all: http://agentultra.com/?p=76
The compatibility issue is the browser developer’s fault. The standards are open to interpretation and at the end of the day they have to take liberties in how they implement them. The more browsers there are, the bigger the problem becomes.
The best way I coped with the problem when I did web design work was to target the spec and use conditional hooks to load in extra browser-specific rules to work around the bugs.
Luckily most of the CSS bugs in major browsers are known and well documented: http://www.positioniseverything.net
At the end of the day, when ever I encounter the arguments against standards-based design, I just nod my head. There’s absolutely no reason why one should avoid it. The evidence is there and I haven’t heard a compelling reason to choose inferior design techniques.
In practice I haven’t touched a table-based design since 2005 and I’ve done a fair bit of work for quite a few clients since then.
Ok,
To respond to : “The only good reason to not use standards-based design is when you and your clients care only how the page looks visually.”
The building industry has been ravaged with this same argument for years and only recently has there been a real push to show that you can merge both accessibility and good design. In my opinion design should not have to suffer for accessbility and vice versa. Good design includes accessibility, it should not be an after thought.
To respond to : “However, your arguments completely miss the point of standards-based design.”
Well that’s where we disagree, I don’t see anything valid in your arguments and feel you are completely missing the point.
My repsonses one by one….
1. Search engines don’t favour sites that are built with the lastest coding standards.
Google and other search engines have been around long enough now to know how to interpret HTML code and know what’s content and what’s not.
2. Yes I agree it’s more flexible in this sense. But that doesn’t make it faster.
3. Ok, well you can continue to blame browser developers all day long, but the bottom line is that that is all we have to work with.
I feel it’s our duty to provide the most accessible websites as possible no matter what the potential viewer will view your website in. Whether it’s a screen reader or an old browser.
Even with a screen reader, you could say the developers could develop them a lot better.
If the only thing we can do is build cross broswer accessible websites - in the “old fashioned” way, which you can - that would personally be my favoured plan of action.
I think you are missing one major point here. In the future my opinion is definitely going to change. But currently the hype surrounding coding standards, is exactly that, hype.
I’m tired of hearing the ridiculous reasons that pro standards people use to justify coding standards use. The search engine one is one that irks me most.
And remember I am a standards fan, I believe it’s what we need for the future. However, let’s stop the silly reasons that people are using to justify their use now.
I only think it’s fair that people that don’t understand what the patest coding standards are, are given concise and accurate information - which they are not getting.
In a lot of cases, they aren’t even asked and for me that’s just like the old days when web designers would build websites that worked in nothing else but IE. That’s something we don’t want to go back to.
“Good design includes accessibility, it should not be an after thought.”
This is what I mean when I say that accessibility should be designed for up front — it should be a design consideration itself and not a thorn in your side.
I think we actually agree a lot more than disagree, except on the vague notion of what is standard vs. non-standard based design.
All I suggest is that I’ve never seen a good reason in the last 4 years to use tables for layouts or to avoid the use of CSS.
The search engine argument can be pretty lame, but it’s mostly because people who talk about search engines generally don’t have a grasp on the mechanical details of a search engine implementation.
It’s true that you won’t be intentionally ranked lower in search engine results if your page uses tables to layout it’s information; at least not for a while. However, it does give you added benefit to properly structure your data since more search engines are starting to semantically parse data structures and reason about their contents. Microformats are also becoming more popular and more search engines today are recognizing them.
Consider how Google displays the top result on its SERP today. A well-designed standards-based site occupying the top spot will have all of its navigation links presented underneath the main link to the site along with it’s search box and various other little bits of extra information. This is because search engines these days are starting to parse semantic documents and reason about their contents.
While it’s true that a good search engine won’t rank your site lower if it uses tables to layout its navigation menu over nested lists; there’s obvious added benefit if it can find your menu and be able to parse it.
I’m not saying that it’s a horrible disservice to your clients to lean on older design techniques; I merely suggest that there’s no added benefits to doing so. In my experience I haven’t seen a good reason to avoid using standards-based design techniques. They’ve only improved the quality of my work and made my life easier.
Hi agentultra,
Yes I think we do agree more so. And as I stated I’m a fan of standards, but don’t nessecarily believe the hype surrounding it right now.
No offence, but this example of Google again is wrong. The links aren’t because of a site being standards based at all. Google has it’s own way of deciding if a site warrants having these links and displays them on sites it feels deserve them. Here’s an example - http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enIE271IE271&q=euromech - the top site is a site developed with tables.
Google has for a long time been well able to go through a website and find the navigation whether the site is standards based or not.
Again, for me at this stage there are pros and cons on both sides and I think armed with the right information, the client should decide what they prefer, rather than techies telling them to use the latest and greatest.
Tom