W3C Compliance - Perspectives - Costs/Benefits

[designer]

First let me take a moment to express my thanks to all those who work to keep this forum so well maintained and active! The advantage of many to one is discourse.
The process or power of reasoning is our awareness. Awareness is our humanity.

As to my question:

I am not sure where a post regarding merits of W3C from the practical viewpoint of the web designer who is building for a modest size website of 5-20 pages (So called; brochure type websites).

Seeking diverse and alternative viewpoints regarding the merits of W3C compliance. In particular, seeking pragmatic advantages for the brochure type small website, in being W3C strict. Advantages to the website owner, frankly need to be made somewhat clearer to me, if we are to adopt W3C strict compliance/ or transitional.

Also seeking views of those who may be W3C complaint adherents.

Thanks much!

Designer@pcsoup.com

[johneva]

Hi

I personally think W3C standards rocks for a few reasons first being that it is trying to get all browsers to be working on the same rules for coding. Microsoft being the only company who has chosen not to got along with these standards as then know they still have the main stream of the market, and dont want other options to be available as they think they may lose out.

By having coding that stays within the rules set by W3C you also then will have a site which is very easy to customize and edit as you need.

I also think it is good as the idea of making these new standards is to get everyones coding upto a good level, at the moment there are lots of very badly coded sites out there and anybody can just grab a WYSIWYG editor and make a web site. Thats great in one way but then they ask for help and it is near on impossiable to give them help cos there coding is just a load of tag soup.

The other thing of course is when the site changes web masters hands if your asked as a web designer to start looking after a site made by somebody else you want the coding to be easy to understand. I do some SEO work and if the sites coding is all over the place then it makes my job so much harder.

Thats another thing search engines love it sticking to the rules set by W3C keeps files sizes down meaning quicker download times (bandwidth saving) and less coding for the seach engines to crawl. Also making a site which sticks to the rules set by W3C makes the site more accessable to all who use the web.

I am not finished with the site yet but if you take a look over the coding for my site and comare it to this other site I have found, tell me which site you would prefer to give help to or have to work on.

They both have pretty much the same layout except mine is a 3 column with the center div as fluid and the Citroen site is a fixed 3 column (try resizing my site, who makes best use of larger screen res?). Oh and Citroen use a expandable top menu that can be achived using the suckerfish menu insted of the way they have done it.

My Personal Web Site

Citroen Contract Hre

Granted mine also is not a dynamic page but here compare this one to Citroens then.
Total Fleet Contract Hire

Yes learning enough about HTML/XHTML and CSS to make your coding anywhere near W3C's standards can be quite hard work to start of with but it also saves you so much time in the long run. I am still learning all the time as I am very new to web design myself but have got the basics now for making sites W3C standards compliant (Just need to keep working on my CSS skills).

The big problem with W3C standards is of course IE, with IE not being standards compliant you can do the best coding in the world but there is a good chance it wont work in IE, fear not though if you design your site so it is how you want it in FF or another standards compliant browser there are hacks to fix any problems with redering your site in IE.

I also use Dreamweaver template files which between them and correct use of CSS you can redesign a site so easy.

Hope that made sence but as you can see I love the idea of W3C standards.

Thanx

[designer]

John, I very much appreciate the feedback. Also, you make a fair case for W3C. Naturally, I.E. is often estimated at merely 92% of the web browser usage though. And, frankly, my stats tell me it is greater than even this. Nevertheless, I design for multiple browsers, just in case.

W3C does fail to validate MSN with two errors, on my last check. W3C failed to validate Google with 50 errors today, but that figure was higher a few days ago. No idea why the improvement. Surely, cost or skill of the web designers who work for Google or MSN is not what is behind this lack of full W3C compliance. But, there is surely a reason.

Regarding SEO and compliance. If you type in "SEO" as a search term in Google the first listing I received ....http://www.seochat.com/ W3C failed to validate this site: Failed validation, 398 errors. This seems inconsistent with your philosophy of search engine placement and W3C compliance?

It does require extra coding time and other restrictions to make the site W3C compliant. Further, if the site is to be W3C complaint then logic suggests it should be strict not transitional. Furthermore, it seems to me even more important that the site be Sec. 508 compliant. Now the bar gets even higher. But, cost/benefit must be the driving factor for the developer. For cost/benefit is the driving factor for the customer choices.

W3C is not the only important factor. Ex. The WMV on your website is 1.7 MB. Converting the file to optimized flash, would increase usability and decrease file size by 1.2 MB or more. Relative to search engines, ICRA labeling might be of help to your website. Your static pages are W3C complaint, and I should add, so is your website’s CSS. Unfortunately, the forum area of your website is not W3C compliant. Do you plan to use a different forum? If so, I might suggest you glance at http://plone.org

Again, thanks for your suggestions. We are considering the marketability of W3C.

[johneva]

Hi

Me again, having a website that uses divs and css for layout is very benifical for SEO I know this as the lease-hire.co.uk site 8 months ago was a table layout and was not W3C comliant and also was none existant in the search engines.

Then when the guys at iweb solutions did a redesign and used divs and CSS as they now do for all there web sites the site came up onto around the third page.

After me doing some more SEO for the site they have they got to where they have.

I am far from saying it has to be done to get good rankings as you seem to make out in your last post, I am just saying it is one of many many techniques for improving your search engine rank.

As for doing the movie in Flash I suppose your right but as I dont know how to use Flash very much at all that is not really an option for me.

Also as for the cost/benefit your talking about it means nothing to me as I am just a newbie and not a pro anyways.

I have only been using a computer for around 14 months now and only been playing around with websites for around 8 months. I have leant standards compliace as it is the correct way of doing things it has been no extra work for me as I did not know how to code pages before.

In your situation where it would mean retraining I can totally understand what your saying. But I would also have to say it is most benifical just going of what other pro designers have told me.

The guys at iweb solutions and the guys on this forumI use all swear by it.

As for the forum yeah that is just one that is on a free account at PPHPBB hosts and does not give me FTP access(I dont use it nomore as you can see anyways).

This is cos I had a couple of diffrent forums on my old free hosting account I had, but they did not seem to work for some comuters setups something to do with the coding for the ads of my free host clashing with the coding for the forum.

That is why I then just went and got a free account at PHPBB. If I was intrested in doing another forum now I have a piad host and my own domain I would not be as bothered about it being standards compliant as it would not be coded by me.

The main reason my sites is standards complian is just cos thats what I know, it is no extra effort for me.

The only reason my site is not in XHTML strict is cos for it to be strict compliant I would not be able to use the taget attribue which is handy for outbound links.

Just cos your coding is standards compliant does not mean you have to use the strick doc type that is why there is the transitional doc type.

If your going to ask for someones opinion dont then try and make them look stupid just for giving there opinion by the way.

If you dont like the idea of standards compliance then why ask about peoples opinion on it.

Thanx John

[johneva]

I take it back you are allowed the target attribute in XHTML1.0 strict I'am thinking of XHTML1.1

So I have now changed my doc type to strict just to make you happy.

[designer]

John,

On the contrary, your opinion was and is important to my thinking on this issue. As for anyone beginning web design, I whole heartedly recommend W3C compliance skills. It will be the future! Near future? Distant future? It is relative. But, to the customer's request; today, tomorrow and next week are very specific requirements which we must meet or exceed.

Perhaps, I should be making reference to stability. The concept of stability has kept many major corporations still using windows 95! Really, lots out there. Stable as can be:) And practical: windows 95, affordable to stay with the original computers and software programs, if they continued to get the job done. For many years, many IT experts considered windows 95 to get the job done better, at less cost and far less headaches than converting to windows 98. The word often heard was, “STABILITYâ€

[johneva]

Oh right mabe I had not taken your message the way you had intened me to then sorry.

Arrrrr

You star yeah sound fella.

Here is the layout I used just had to adjust the css to what I needed and use it as a Dreamweaver template file.

And here are a few more done in css.
Liquid Nevative Margins
A list of a few
Some Other Layout Techniques

If you want to be able to add Flash and still validate you will wanna read this.

Email has been PMed to ya cheers fella.

Thanx John

[designer]

Thanks John,

With a grain of salt. All that glitters is not gold. You know, all those good olden time sayings. It's this that I consider when looking at W3C. Someone telling you how to speak. Is W3C our new English teacher who is old school strict? Red roses are red, green leaves are green, there is not any reason to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen. You get the point......

The effect of W3C is not merely a matter of efficient use of technological language. The matter soon embraces language as a whole. The ability to communicate is at once facilitated and constrained by convention. The choice of a language is being made! Who is the maker of the choices is of paramount importance to human kind.

Human language is dynamic for good reason. I would be interested to know Noam Chomsky's views on W3C. To my knowledge he has not stated his views regarding this.

In any legal system that you take seriously, coerced judgments are considered invalid, but in the international affairs conducted by the powerful, coerced judgments are fine - they are called diplomacy.
Noam Chomsky, March 21 2003

Academically, the below is a trivalent matter. Somewhat like a typo? Maybe? Also, could easily be defended as a preference. Rather like this. During a recent discourse regarding the variations found in the spelling of the word “colourâ€

[designer]

Naturally, I am extremely pleased to find at least some indication as to Mr. Noam Chomsky's views on W3C.

A 1992 survey by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) library revealed Chomsky to be the most quoted living person and eighth most quoted source after Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato and Freud.

Noam CHOMSKY is "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (the New York Times)

http://www.chomsky.info/


Worth mention; both of MIT: Mr. Noma Chomsky Institute Professor and Mr. Tim Berners-Lee Professor, each having numerous other titles.

http://www.chomsky.info/
W3C failed to validate the above site:
Failed validation, 10 errors
W3C validation for other pages with the site fared similarly per W3C.

Yet, an attempt at compliance did seem to have been made. Perhaps, W3C is merely a matter of recommendations than a matter of absolute compliance. This interpretation would seem more consistent with my findings than the often suggested view that W3C compliance is well suited as the single or even primary measure of good website design, internet publishing, etc.

Thus, we have decided to merely offer the option to the customer.

Designer@pcsoup.com

[johneva]

Cheers for the Flash file thats really good of ya.

Though it does lose a bit of quality by optimizing it though Flash dont it.

But considering the file size diffrence it is no wonder really.

Thanx again John