Saturday, January 30, 2010

Web Standards - No Margin for Error

The economic benefits of standardization are tangible. Once we can quantify them, companies will begin to realize the true potential of the Web-Standards.

Do Web standards give organizations a return on investment?Do Web standards make financial sense? The answer to these million-dollar questions is YES.

Web standards force you to error check. Simply declaring which version of XML you’re using will let you validate your pages against the specified Schema. Validation turns HTML into something like a scripting language.

Web standards simplify maintenance, since design is separate from content, but logically linked through a CSS file. This clear-cut separation makes it much easier for you to develop and maintain your pages in tandem.

Shorter development cycles not only result in cost-savings, but free up resources sooner, thereby increasing opportunity.

Web Standards improve user experience by adopting clean, standardized code which gives users a shortcut to accomplishing their goals on the website and in turn this also results in increased turnover due to more people using your site.

Some closing words
If you adopt the web standards way, you go through a learning process where you should grant yourself the liberty and time to experiment, make mistakes, "Learn,Unlearn and Re-learn. And don't forget to enjoy this transition, from my own experience I can tell it is worth the effort and leaves no margin for error.

©®Chitra Lele