This is a collection of several arguments for the use of web standards to be cross-linked to the different Audience sections. Please add new arguments as a linked heading with a short description. Please consider the audience when you formulate new arguments. We are all very much in favour of web standards here and there is no need for "webstandards rock!" entries.
Each of the arguments will get a link to the applicable sections like audience they work well, counterarguments and possible case studies.
Please use the ArgumentTemplate as a starting point to keep up consistency.
- Ease of Distributed Development
- By sticking to agreed programming and development standards you don’t have to explain your ways to third party providers and off-shore development teams.
- Quality Control
- Products that have been developed in accordance with a defined standard can be verified against this standard – even as part of an automated release process
- Low-cost induction and training
- Sticking to world-wide agreed guidelines and standards allows you to hire people already following these standards and cuts down on the induction time in your company. Developers can “hit the ground running”.
- Predictability of product output
- As more and more browsers and other user agents subscribe to standards-defined display sticking to standards makes sure that your products do not only look and work fine now, but also in those to come.
- Multi channel distribution
- By separating structure from content, presentation and behaviour you can easily change any of the components to create a different output format like print or mobile.
- Ease of re-use and conversion
- Properly structured HTML without any presentational markup can be converted to other formats via XSLT or XSLT-FO or imported into word and Excel without having to clean it up. This allows for fancy PDF versions without extra development overhead.
- Search Engine Optimization
- Properly structured HTML ranks higher in search engines than tag soup thus driving traffic to the site and creating more value for the business.
- Access to new markets
- Properly accessible and semantic HTML makes it possible to sell to more people. Parts of the disabled community are some of the few demographics that actually favour e-commerce over bricks and mortar.
- Authoring tool flexibility
- Following detailed industry-wide standards makes easier any potential changes in an organization's standard authoring tools.
- Acceptance and support by staff rises?
- Untrained staff will not get frightened, when looking at the code of a well-designed (X)HTML-document. The idea that this is "a simple thing" rises acceptance and support for web-projects and gains therefore teamspirit.
- Exactly who do you want to shut out??
- By not working with professional standards we can make it hard, or even impossible, for some people to use the site. Please tell me who you want to keep away: The visually impaired? The elderly? People using cellphones to surf? (No, I'm afraid we can't do ethnicity.)
- Attract Better Developers
- Clean, *Validating*, Semantic Markup can be an effective first glimpse into the possible forward-thinking culture of a given organization. Skilled User Interface Engineers entertaining new opportunities will pay attention to such details. Better developers will be key factors in an organization's growth and longevity.
