Thursday, March 15, 2007

Building Standards Compliant Websites

John-Daniel Trask

Mindscape

What is a Standard?

  • Agreed upon protocols
  • Three types
    • De-facto
    • Industry
    • Government

Importance of Web Standards

  • Ensure durability
  • Ensure accessibility
  • Ensure portability
HTML
  • HTML 4.01
  • Last revision
  • Being superseded by XHTML
CSS
  • Level 1 (CSS 1.0)
  • Level 2 revision 1 (CSS 2.1)
  • Level 3 (under development)
  • Mobile Profile
  • TV Profile
WAI
  • Web Accessibility Initiative
  • Guidelines for
    • Aiding disable audience
    • Aiding agent type support
NZ Standards
Other Standards
  • RSS / ATOM (and icon)
  • SiteMaps
  • OpenSearch
Why Standards Compliance Makes a Difference
  • Acid2 Test
Implications of “no standard”
  • Separate specification class emerges per browser
  • More expensive delivery
  • Frustrates users
  • Hurts adoption
Microsoft and Web Standards
  • Getting better
  • IE7 is a major step forward
  • IE8 under development (Acid2 compliant)
  • Working with other organisations
IE7 Functional Advancements
  • Support for OpenSearch
  • Scaling handled by browser (text and graphics simultaneously)
  • Phishing filter
  • Tabbed browsing
  • RSS platform support
IE7 Rendering Advancements
  • Fixed more than 50 CSS bugs
  • Transparent PNG support
  • Added CSS 2.1 positioning
  • Added CSS 2.1 selector support
Advancements in Tooling
  • Validation added to existing tools
  • CSS Control Adapters for ASP.Net 2.0
  • Plug-ins for Internet Explorer
  • Full new product line…


Expression Web
  • For designers
  • Standards based
  • CSS based layout
  • Strong support for XML and XSLT
  • Direct integration with ASP.Net 2.0
Key Benefits
  • Prevents non-compliant sites
  • Rich CSS designer support
  • No OOTB (out of the box) legacy tags
  • Comprehensive DOCTYPE validation
How to use this stuff…
Visual Studio
  • Orcas, March CTP
  • Richer validation support
  • Link checking
  • Tag structure visualization
  • Web Designer and CSS support baked in Orcas
  • ASP.Net 2.0
ASP.Net 2.0 CSS Control Adapters
  • Demo
Validating your sites
  • Validate online with W3C
  • Validate with tools (e.g. expression ware)
  • Ease validation with browser integration
  • Download http://tinyurl.com/


Checklist for building your site
  • Valid HTML
  • Valid CSS
  • Page weight
  • Screen size, font size
  • Accessibility factors
  • Cross browser checking
Call to Action
  • Validate your sites
  • Grab Expression Web Designer (free 60 day trial)
  • Develop to standards

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