Editing Web standards (section)

==The web standards movement==
The earliest visible manifestation of the web standards movement was the [[Web Standards Project]], launched in August 1998 as a grassroots coalition fighting for improved web standards support in browsers.<ref>{{Cite news| issn = 0010-4841| volume = 32| issue = 33| pages = 76| last = Sliwa| first = Carol| title = Browser standards targeted| work = Computerworld| date = 1998-08-17}}</ref>

The web standards movement supports concepts of standards-based web design, including the separation of document structure from a web page or application's appearance and behavior; an emphasis on semantically structured content that validates (that is, contains no errors of structural composition) when tested against validation software maintained by the [[World Wide Web Consortium]]; and [[progressive enhancement]], a layered approach to web page and application creation that enables all people and devices to access the content and functionality of a page, regardless of personal physical ability (accessibility), connection speed, and browser capability.

Prior to the web standards movement, many web page developers used invalid, incorrect HTML syntax such as "table layouts" and "spacer" GIF images to create web pages — an approach often referred to as "[[tag soup]]". Such pages sought to look the same in all browsers of a certain age (such as [[Microsoft Internet Explorer]] 4 and [[Netscape Navigator]] 4), but were often inaccessible to people with disabilities. Tag soup pages also displayed or operated incorrectly in older browsers, and required code forks such as [[JavaScript]] for [[Netscape Navigator]] and JScript for [[Internet Explorer]] that added to the cost and complexity of development. The extra code required, and the lack of a caching page layout language, made web sites "heavy" in terms of bandwidth, as did the frequent use of images as text. These bandwidth requirements were burdensome to users in developing countries, rural areas, and wherever fast Internet connections were unavailable.

The Web Standards movement pioneered by [[Glenn Davis (web design)|Glenn Davis]], George Olsen, [[Jeffrey Zeldman]], Steven Champeon, Todd Fahrner, [[Eric A. Meyer]], [[Tantek Çelik]], Dori Smith, [[Tim Bray]], Jeffrey Veen, and other members of the Web Standards Project replaced bandwidth-heavy [[tag soup]] with light, semantic markup and [[progressive enhancement]], with the goal of making web content "accessible to all".<ref name="WebStandardsMission">{{cite web|title=Web Standards Mission|url=http://archive.webstandards.org/mission.html|publisher=Archive.webstandards.org|access-date=2014-02-26}}</ref>

The Web Standards movement declared that [[HTML]], [[CSS]], and [[JavaScript]] were more than simply interesting technologies. "They are a way of creating Web pages that will facilitate the twin goals of sophisticated and appropriate presentation and widespread accessibility."<ref name="WebStandardsMission" /> The group succeeded in persuading [[Netscape]], [[Microsoft]], and other browser makers to support these standards in their browsers. It then set about promoting these standards to designers, who were still using [[tag soup]], [[Adobe Flash]], and other proprietary technologies to create web pages.

In 2007, Douglas Vos initiated the [[Blue Beanie Day]], inspired by Jeffrey Zeldman, who is shown with a blue cap on the book cover of his 2003 book ''Designing with Web Standards''.<ref>{{cite web | title=Blue Beanie Day II | last=Zeldman | first = Jeffrey | website=Zeldman on Web & Interaction Design | date=2008-11-20 | url=http://www.zeldman.com/2008/11/19/blue-beanie-day-ii/ | access-date=2020-04-21}}</ref> Since then, the [[30 November]] is the annual international celebration of web standards and [[web accessibility]].<ref>{{cite web | last=Walker | first=Alissa | title=Why Is Your Web Designer Wearing a Blue Hat Today? | website=Fast Company | date=2009-11-30 | url=https://www.fastcompany.com/1472960/why-your-web-designer-wearing-blue-hat-today | access-date=2020-04-21}}</ref>