Editing Web standards

{{short description|Technical standard}}
'''Web standards''' are the formal, non-proprietary [[Internet standard|standards]] and other technical [[specification]]s that define and describe aspects of the [[World Wide Web]]. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized [[best practices]] for building [[web site]]s, and a philosophy of [[web design]] and development that includes those methods.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.webstandards.org/about/mission/ | title=Mission - Web Standards Project  | publisher=WaSP | access-date=2009-01-19}}</ref>

==Overview==
Web standards include many interdependent standards and specifications, some of which govern aspects of the [[Internet]], not just the World Wide Web. Even when not web-focused, such standards directly or indirectly affect the development and administration of web sites and [[web service]]s. Considerations include the [[interoperability]], [[accessibility]] and [[usability]] of web pages and web sites.

Web standards consist of the following:
* Recommendations published by the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C),<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.w3.org/TR/#Recommendations |title=W3C Technical Reports and Publications | publisher=W3C | access-date=2009-01-19}}</ref> such as [[HTML]]/[[XHTML]], [[Cascading Style Sheets]] (CSS), image formats such as [[PNG|Portable Network Graphics]] (PNG) and [[SVG|Scalable Vector Graphics]] (SVG), as well as accessibility technologies like [[WAI-ARIA]]<ref name="allsopp">{{Cite book| publisher = New Riders | isbn = 978-0-321-70271-5| last = Allsopp| first = John| title = Developing with Web Standards| date = 2009-12-09|place=Berkeley|page=11}}</ref>
* Standards and "Living standards" published by the [[Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group]] (WHATWG), such as the [[HTML5|HTML Living Standard]], [[Document Object Model|DOM Standard]], [[Character encoding|Encoding Standard]] and [[URL|URL Standard]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=WHATWG Standards |url=https://spec.whatwg.org/ |access-date=2020-11-22 |website=spec.whatwg.org}}</ref>
* Standards published by [[Ecma International]] (formerly ECMA)<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/index.html | title=Ecma formal publications  | publisher=Ecma | access-date=2009-01-19}},</ref> such as [[JavaScript]] (also known as ''ECMAScript'') and [[JavaScript Object Notation]] (JSON) <ref name="allsopp" />
* Standards published by the [[International Organization for Standardization]] (ISO),<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?qt=world+wide+web&published=on&active_tab=standards |title=Search for World Wide Web in ISO standards | publisher=ISO | access-date=2009-01-19}}</ref> such as [[JPEG]]<ref name="allsopp" />

More broadly, the following technologies may be referred to as "web standards" as well:

* [[Request for Comments]] (RFC) documents published by the [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] (IETF)<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html |title=IETF RFC page | publisher=IETF | access-date=2009-01-19}}</ref>
* The [[Unicode]] Standard and various Unicode Technical Reports (UTRs) published by the [[Unicode Consortium]]<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.unicode.org/reports/index.html | title=Unicode Technical Reports | publisher=Unicode Consortium | access-date=2009-01-19}}</ref>
* Name and number registries maintained by the [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority]] (IANA)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.iana.org/ | title=IANA home page | publisher=IANA | access-date=2009-01-19}}</ref>

Web standards are evolving specifications of web technologies.<ref>{{cite book | author=Leslie Sikos | title= Web standards - Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML | publisher= [[Apress]] | year= 2011 | isbn= 	978-1-4302-4041-9 | url= http://www.masteringhtml5css3.com/}}</ref> Web standards are developed by [[standards organization]]s—groups of interested and often competing parties chartered with the task of standardization—not technologies developed and declared to be a standard by a single individual or company. It is crucial to distinguish those specifications that are under development from the ones that already reached the final development status (in case of [[W3C]] specifications, the highest maturity level).

==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>

== Common usage ==
When a web site or web page is described as complying with web standards, it usually means that the site or page has valid [[HTML]], [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] and [[JavaScript]]. The HTML should also meet [[Web accessibility|accessibility]] and [[HTML#Semantic HTML|semantic]] guidelines. Full standard compliance also covers proper settings for [[character encoding]], valid [[RSS]] or valid [[Atom (standard)|Atom]] news feed, valid [[Resource Description Framework|RDF]], valid [[metadata]], valid [[XML]], valid object embedding, valid script embedding, browser- and resolution-independent codes, and proper server settings.

When web standards are discussed, the following publications are typically seen as foundational:
* Recommendations for [[markup language]]s, such as Hypertext Markup Language ([[HTML]]), Extensible Hypertext Markup Language ([[XHTML]]), and Scalable Vector Graphics ([[Scalable Vector Graphics|SVG]]) from W3C.
* Recommendations for [[style sheet (web development)|stylesheets]], especially Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), from W3C.
* Standards for [[ECMAScript]], more commonly JavaScript, from Ecma International.
* Recommendations for Document Object Models ([[Document Object Model|DOM]]), from W3C.
* Properly formed names and addresses for the page and all other resources referenced from it ([[URI]]s), based upon <nowiki>RFC 2396</nowiki>, from IETF.<ref>{{cite IETF
| title       = Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax
| rfc         = 2396
| doi         = 10.17487/RFC2396
| last1       = Berners-Lee
| first1      = Tim
| author-link1 = Tim Berners-Lee
| last2       = Fielding
| first2      = Roy T.
| author-link2 = Roy Fielding
| last3       = Masinter
| first3      = Larry
| year        = 1998
| publisher   = [[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]]
| access-date  = 2009-10-27
}}</ref>
* Proper use of [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]] and [[MIME]] to deliver the page, return data from it and to request other resources referenced in it, based on <nowiki>RFC 2616</nowiki>, from IETF.<ref>{{cite IETF
| title       = Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
| rfc         = 2616
| doi         = 10.17487/RFC2616
| last1       = Fielding
| first1      = Roy T.
| author-link1 = Roy Fielding
| last2       = Gettys
| first2      = James
| author-link2 = Jim Gettys
| last3       = Mogul
| first3      = Jeffrey C.
| last4       = Nielsen
| first4      = Henrik Frystyk
| author-link4 = Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
| last5       = Masinter
| first5      = Larry
| last6       = Leach
| first6      = Paul J.
| last7       = Berners-Lee
| first7      = Tim
| author-link7 = Tim Berners-Lee
| year        = 1999
| publisher   = [[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]]
| access-date  = 2009-10-27
}}</ref>

Web accessibility is normally based upon the [[Web Content Accessibility Guidelines]]<ref>{{cite web 
|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
|title=Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, W3C Recommendation 5-May-1999
|publisher=W3C
|year=1999
|access-date=2009-02-18
}}</ref> published by the W3C's [[Web Accessibility Initiative]].

Work in the W3C toward the [[Semantic Web]] is currently focused by publications related to the [[Resource Description Framework]] (RDF), [[GRDDL|Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages]] (GRDDL) and [[Web Ontology Language]] (OWL).

== Standards publications and bodies ==
A W3C Recommendation is a specification or set of guidelines that, after extensive consensus-building, has received the endorsement of W3C Members and the Director.

An IETF Internet Standard is characterized by a high degree of technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet community. A specification that reaches the status of Standard is assigned a number in the IETF STD series while retaining its original IETF RFC number.

== Non-standard and vendor-proprietary pressures ==
HTML 5 contains numerous "willful violations" of other specifications, in order to accommodate limitations of existing platforms.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/introduction.html#compliance-with-other-specifications|title=HTML 5 - A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML - Compliance with other specifications|access-date=2017-06-29}}</ref>

==Web Standards Compliance Testing==
There are compliance tests both for HTML code generated by websites as well as for the faithful interpretation of HTML code by web browsers.

===Compliance tests for website code===
[[World Wide Web Consortium|W3C]] offers online services to test websites directly for both web site developers, as well as for website users.  These include:
* [https://validator.w3.org/ Markup Validation Service] to check the markup (HTML, XHTML, ...) of Web documents
* [http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ CSS Validation Service] to check Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and (X)HTML documents with style sheets

===Compliance tests for web browsers===
The [[Web Standards Project]] (WaSP), although development is officially ''inactive'', continues to offer two levels of testing services for web browsers:
* [https://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/index.html Acid2 Browser Test]
* [https://www.webstandards.org/action/acid3/index.html Acid3 Browser Test]

== See also ==
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* [[Acid3]]
* ''[[Designing with Web Standards]]''
* [[Open Web Foundation]] (OWF)
* [[Responsive web design]] (RWD)
* [[W3C Markup Validation Service]]
* [[WebPlatform.org]]
* [[Web Standards Project]]
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== References ==
{{reflist|40em}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.w3.org/ W3C homepage]
* [http://www.ietf.org/ The Internet Engineering Task Force]

{{Web interfaces}}

[[Category:Web standards| ]]