Benefits of W3C Complaince

JW2E believes strongly in developing Web sites that conform and comply to those established by the W3C and ECMA. The benefits of developing a standards-based Web site include:

• lower development and maintenance costs
• faster page rendering
• providing everyone access to the information you are providing
• faster and more enjoyable Web development
• offering people with special needs the opportunity to use your site
• providing browsing at your site with alternate devices
• better search engine returns due to the superior indexing of your site
• far greater stability and longevity
• greater use of Web documents in other software and applications
• freedom to move your site to other developers, or vendors, without a steep training curve

It's been estimated that the lack of standardization amongst Web browser manufacturers has doubled, even tripled, the cost of developing sites that work equally on all versions. Introducing new technology into that environment is sketchy at best and not without added cost. The bottom-line is without standards, the Internet is handicapped and forced to move forward at a much slower pace and higher price.

What are the standards?

Standards are simply the rules for developing Web sites. They apply to programming scripts, page formatting, presentation, object modeling and interoperability. The two major bodies governing the creation of these rules are the W3C and ECMA.

What is the W3C?

The W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium. It's an organization consisting of over 450 members that represent a variety of hardware and software manufacturers, content providers, academic institutions, telecommunication firms and other businesses. The W3C is hosted by M.I.T in the USA, INRIA in Europe and Keio University in Japan. The W3C develops specifications and standards to enhance the interoperability of Web-related products. Under the guidance of the W3C, standards for HTML, XHTML, XML, XSL, CSS, MathML and DOM (Data Object Modeling) are being developed.

What is the ECMA?

ECMA is the European Computer Manufacturers Association and was officially founded in 1961 to meet the need for standardizing computer operational formats, including programming languages. ECMA is based in Geneva, Switzerland, near the headquarters of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (EIC). The main role of ECMA is to develop standards in the area of information and communication technology. The ECMA standards include ECMAScript, which standardizes JavaScript used to manipulate objects as specified in the DOM.

What are the advantages of using Web standards?

There are benefits to adhering to Web standards that far outweigh the associated costs. Complying with Web standards can give your Web pages greater visibility in Web searches. The structural information present in compliant documents makes it easy for search engines to access and evaluate the information in those documents, and they get indexed more accurately. Compliant documents can easily be converted to other formats, such as databases or Word documents. This allows for more versatile use of the information within documents on the World Wide Web, and simplified migration to new systems - hardware as well as software - including devices such as TVs and PDAs.

Compliant documents means greater access to people. Not only does this mean allowing the Web to be used by people with disabilities, but also allowing Web pages to be understood by people using browsers other than the usual ones - including voice browsers that read Web pages aloud to people with sight impairments, Braille browsers that translate text into Braille, hand-held browsers with very little monitor space, teletext displays, and other unusual output devices. Making sites standards-compliant will help ensure not only that traditional browsers, old and new, will all be able to present sites properly, but also that they will work with unusual browsers and media.