Standards? Why use 'em?

S tandards save you money. That's the bottom line. There are many technical and more esoteric reasons why standards are a good thing and some of these are outlined below. However, as a business person, it is less important to know how standards save you money than it is to know that they do.

Standards and the Web

Standards, and the adherence to them, are what the web is built on. Standards enable and promote interoperability. All our work complies with W3C standards.

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Valid CSS!

Using web standards gives you a degree of 'future proofing'. Most modern browsers support standards. If your site adheres to these standards, it is sure to function and to look and feel the same in those browsers that support standards. The majority of browsers on the market now (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozzilla Firefox etc.) do, although the level of support varies. In addition, as new versions of these standards-supporting browsers become available, your site will function, as expected in the new versions without any changes to your pages.

Advantages

So, using web standards not only provides you with a degree of future-proofing, it also ensures cross-browser support. As indicated above, browser support for standards is widespread and growing. Thanks largely to the widespread adoption of, and support for, web standards, gone are the bad old days of maintaining a separate code-line for each of the major browsers. Gone too is the cost - in time and money - that entails. So, with web standards, you can bring your site to a bigger market, in less time and all this at a lower cost.