Web Standards

I get asked to explain the term web standards a lot so here's my stock mini-lecture:

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) was designed to describe the structure of text based documents. While it originally provided some control over appearance, it was not meant for graphic design. However, the web quickly became a successful commercial medium and clients wanted websites that looked nice. Therefore HTML got used to create graphics rich pages. Technically speaking, it got used for presentation as well as content and structure. This led to very bad habits and a generation of web designers who did things the wrong way. (Not because they were incompetent, but because they didn't know any other way. I include myself.)

We've reached the point where professional web developers are trying to undo all this. HTML and the other technologies used to create websites are now capable of creating graphically rich designs and complex systems. The phrase "web standards" means adhering to formal standards and technical specifications, understanding industry accepted best practices, and the approach to web design that includes these methods. Creating a site using web standards means:

The site will be viewable on as wide a range of web browsers, computers and other devices such as handhelds and phones as possible. No more creating multiple versions of pages for different web browsers and worrying about how the site will look when new versions of them appear in six months time.
There will be less convoluted code in each webpage, making them smaller and faster to load.
The simpler code will make it easier for someone to update it in the future.
Web standards based sites avoid unnecessary use of images, again making them faster to load.
Accessibility options such as functions to increase font size and change contrast are becoming legal requirements. Even if this doesn't apply to you it's helpful to provide these as a matter of course. Using web standards makes this process far easier.

This is only a brief introduction to web standards. In-depth sources can be found in the links section.