It’s often an uphill battle when it comes to explaining the importance of web standards to our clients. Web designers and developers tend to rant on about accessible design and valid HTML while forgetting the fact that many of our clients just don’t care. In fact, many developers don’t bother with it either, and that may be part of the problem why Web standards are given far less emphasis than they deserve.
Web standards are more like guidelines in that they attempt to provide instructions on the best practices of web design and development. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, w3c.org) are the folks who spell out these guidelines and work on implementing the next Web standard. Most online (automated) code validation services use the W3C guidelines to check your code, and from here on, by “valid code” I mean code that adheres to the W3C guidelines.
But why should you, as a web designer/developer, care about having valid code and accessible design?
- Cross-browser compatibility; IE (6, 7, 8), Firefox (2, 3), Opera (8, 9)… there’s a whole list of different web browsers that different people use and will most definitely use to access your website. Cross-browser compatibility becomes a (severe) headache when our carefully designed pages aren’t showing properly across different browsers. For example, the design may be perfect in Firefox, but a complete disaster when viewed in IE — and hasn’t that happened to all of us!
Most of today’s browsers support web standards, so if you follow the set guidelines it almost guarantees you cross-browser compatibility. Even though the design may not look or work exactly the same across all browsers, valid code will help each of them interpret the page in the way that was meant.
Cross-browser compatibility is one problem that every designer needs to have early on because even though its very traumatic, the experience is also very good in teaching us of the importance of browser-specific-hack free code. - Cross-system compatibility; way back when we started out as web designers, we only ever had to worry about Macs and PCs and the ‘standard’ resolutions (800×600, 1024×768). Now, however, we have smart phones, PDAs, regular phones with browsers, tablets, ultra-portables and who knows what we’ll have accessing the Web tomorrow. We can’t anticipate all the possible user-agents (browsers) or screen resolutions used to access our website, so our best bet lies in sticking to standard guidelines. These devices don’t necessarily render pages like a regular desk or laptop would, but standards-compliant code has a much greater chance of being rendered appropriately.
- Faster load times, easier maintenance; standards-compliant code means smaller file sizes and so a faster loading time which contributes to a better end-user experience. Sites with standard code are also much easier to maintain and update. Maintenance and serving costs are minimized in this way, because it’s easier to update the site and also less bandwidth-intensive to serve them.
- Better Search Engine visibility; search engines use robots to crawl the Web and collect information. Standards-compliant, structured code makes it easier for the search engine robots to understand what our site is about and so result in better search engine rankings and greater visibility. Better search engine rankings lead to higher revenue, whether it’s based on advertisements or sales through the site; the more people who can easily find your site, the more business they’ll do with you.
- Accessibility; this is also a summation of the first two points. Accessibility isn’t just about making it easier for people with disabilities to access and use your site (which is very important, by the way). Rather it applies to everyone who uses the Web, whether they are disabled or simply use an obscure browser. ‘Ease of access’ is essential, and is part of the original intent of the Internet, i.e. to be accessible to everyone. Valid code helps get your information across to a lot more people, and helps them use it more easily.
These are just some important points to keep in mind when designing a website. Having them at the back of your mind can help you make a stronger case for setting aside an hour or two to go over your code and making sure it’s all standards compliant.
But does the client really care? How can you justify this extra development time to them? All they want is a website. The time you give to ‘validating’ your code has no benefit in the eyes of your client and seems like a waste of time. They don’t care about the W3C or WAI-AAA compliance, because it doesn’t seem relevant to them.
It’s important to look at a few reasons why some clients don’t realize the importance of such acronyms and their relevance in the design/development process.
- No visible benefits; generally speaking, there is no way to compare two sites and point out in layman’s terms why valid, standards-compliant code is better. Clients who aren’t familiar with how things work on the Internet will undoubtedly have trouble appreciating the above mentioned benefits to adhering to Web standards unless the alternatives and effects are laid out in terms of time and money. Meaning no offense to anybody, time and money are the most important things on a clients mind – they want a solution quickly, and they want costs to be minimized. There is nothing wrong with this approach, but it can impede upon realizing the importance of ‘under-the-hood’ improvements that do not make themselves evident immediately. Sales do not increase overnight as a result of making your code standards-compliant, and even though SE ranks improve, it cannot be translated effectively into direct benefit.
- Misconceptions about accessibility; As I wrote earlier, accessibility isn’t just about making sure your site is visible across all browsers. A lot more thought needs to go into planning a site that is easy to access and use for anyone who visits, whether they be disabled or not. Clients who do not understand this tend to treat accessibility solely as a coding issue rather than realizing its large scope and implications, such as with easy to understand text and effective navigation.
There is a need to look past the ‘technical’ aspects of accessibility (such as different screen resolutions) and at more human problems, such as content making sense and weird color combinations. - The need for flashyness; Clients see a nice interactive Flash website with all its rollovers and transitions, and they want a site just like it, because its flashy (pun not intended!). Everyone’s a sucker for bells and whistles, and they don’t care if an animated splash screen intro destroys site accessibility, because ‘it looks good’. A dropdown menu that only works via AJAX does not bother the client as it should because it looks ‘cool,’ and almost every other site has it. It seems so much more easier to make flashy, interactive pages than to sit down and think about standards and accessibility, and to apply what the site’s requires with standard coding practices.
Web designers inevitably have to answer to the client, and if the client cannot appreciate the importance of integrating Web standards and accessibility into the development process, things can get very sticky for the designer. The only way to stress on a client the importance of this issue is to educate them of the pros and cons — and not just by telling them; I have found that doing things like taking away the client’s mouse or making them use an outdated browser are effective ways of informing them about the issues and decisions faced by the web designer. Tell them of the increased effectiveness of the site with standards-compliant code and the reduced cost of maintaining and updating it over the years. Explaining things in non-jargon will undoubtedly increase understanding among less tech-savvy clients.
In the end, an important point to note is that its part of the developers’ responsibility (and job, as some claim) to educate their clients on the benefits of having standards compliant code and accessible design. Place more emphasis into the coding, structure and content of the site rather than just the visuals and you’ll be doing a better job as a web developer.