What are Web Standards?
Web standards are standards that websites should be programmed to meet. The standards are set by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) and cover the quality of the primary programming language and grammar (HTML/XHTML) used, the style sheet language and grammar used, and accessibility features that websites should use to make the site accessible to disabled people. All these standards are maintained on this site, and by having a website that conforms to the W3C standards it is a good starting point at enabling accessibility of your site.
The W3C guidelines for accessibility are based on requirements in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, that all websites should be made accessible to disabled users otherwise the website will discriminate against a large proportion of users - In the same way that a business premises must be accessible by disabled people.
For a site to be fully accessible it must be programmed correctly, and the website should validate with the W3C's validation service. If a website fails the validation test, then it could make it very tricky for those people with disabilities who use special software to access the site.
Other benefits of Web Standards
Having a site which validates as being well programmed can also mean far better search engine results. This is because search engine 'bots' much prefer looking at websites that are written well and in valid code.
A web browser such as Internet Explorer may have trouble displaying a website correctly if it is not programmed correctly. The browser will be likely to 'do it's best' to display the website, but it may not come out looking quite right.
Having a well and correctly programmed website will also mean that the site will load faster on people web browsers. For those people with slower internet connections (and there are still some!) it may mean the difference between them staying on your site, or leaving if it is too slow.
This site is written in XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.1 and has been validated by W3C. This site is also accessible to priority 3 level of the W3C's recommendations regarding accessibility. Priority 3 Accessibility
