Web Standards

Web standards are the foundation that we use to build the Web. Unfortunately many still do not use Web standards properly, so many of these articles attempt to help people learn more about the benefits of using Web standards.

HTML5 has reached Last Call status – submit feedback until August 3

HTML5 and several closely related specifications have reached Last Call status, and the W3C has called for broad review of the documents.

Posted on May 30, 2011

Installing the W3C Markup Validator on Mac OS X

How to install the W3C Markup Validator on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Posted on May 4, 2011

X-UA-Compatible and HTML5

If you for some reason have to use the non-standard X-UA-Compatible header to force standards mode in IE, be aware that it is invalid HTML5. Fortunately it is easy to fix.

Posted on March 31, 2011

HTML beyond HTML5

The WHATWG announces that they will now work on a versionless version of HTML, making it a moving target that may make it less than ideal for web developers to reference in their daily work.

Posted on January 25, 2011

HTML5 logo FAQ updated to add clarification

The W3C HTML5 logo FAQ has been updated to clarify what the logo and its accompanying icons represent and that CSS3 is not part of HTML5.

Posted on January 21, 2011

HTML5 now includes CSS3, SVG and WOFF?

Having a nice-looking logo for HTML5 is neat, but I think it’s unfortunate that the W3C are reinforcing the widespread misconception that HTML5 is pretty much anything “Web” that isn’t Flash.

Posted on January 19, 2011

Validation matters

Many kinds of validation errors do not effect the end result at all. But in almost all cases neither does correcting those errors, so there is no point in not doing so.

Posted on September 27, 2010

What characters are allowed unencoded in query strings?

Trying to bring clarity to exactly what characters can be used in URL query strings without first percent encoding them.

Posted on August 30, 2010

Be careful with non-ascii characters in URLs

Unless you have really strong internationalisation requirements, consider sticking to the following characters in URLs: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, -, ., _, and ~.

Posted on June 14, 2010

Validating HTML5 in the browser

I’m looking for a browser extension that supports HTML5 and automatically validates the markup of every page I load in the browser without sending anything to a remote server.

Posted on June 3, 2010

The Web is a web of content, not an application framework

The Web excels at enabling people to find and share information, but it is not a particularly good platform for creating and delivering “desktop-class applications”.

Posted on May 10, 2010

Why iPhones, iPods and iPads are Flash-free

Steve Jobs explains why Apple does not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. One reason is that Flash is proprietary and HTML, CSS and JavaScript are not.

Posted on April 29, 2010

Designing with Progressive Enhancement (Book review)

An absolute must read for any web designer or developer, even if you think you know everything about progressive enhancement already.

Posted on April 15, 2010

Accessibility issues on Vancouver Olympics websites

Joe Clark takes a look at the accessibility (or rather the lack of it) of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics websites.

Posted on March 1, 2010

Remember the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)

ATAG addresses software that is used to create websites or manage the content of websites, but is unfortunately ignored by many creators of such software.

Posted on February 18, 2010

A call for consistent display of alt text across browsers

How browsers display alt text for missing images varies, so it would be nice to see this standardised by specifying the recommended behaviour in HTML 5.

Posted on January 20, 2010

Is SVG support coming to Internet Explorer?

The Senior Program Manager of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Team has announced that Microsoft has joined the W3C’s Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group.

Posted on January 18, 2010

Error messages for corrupt HTML

Vlad Alexander argues that web browsers should display error messages for corrupt HTML 5 and invites Ian Hickson to debate on this topic.

Posted on January 11, 2010

That’s a useful feature, but when can I use it?

Need to find out which browsers (and versions) handle a particle web technology? Don’t have time to keep track of it by yourself. Don’t worry. Help is available.

Posted on December 9, 2009

XHTML 1.0 helped improve the Web

Jeffrey Zeldman on how the stricter and clearer rules of XHTML 1.0 made many web professionals improve their markup.

Posted on November 30, 2009

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