Web Standards

Web Standards are the latest techniques in making Web pages. Using Web Standards makes your Web pages more accessible, but it also makes them faster, smaller, easier to maintain, rank higher in search engines, and be ready to work on a greater number of devices like PDAs. A great way to learn about them is by viewing Dan Frommelt's presention.

The video is 48 minutes long and was filmed in the summer of 2004.

View Dan Frommelt's presentation on Web Standards (320 x 240).

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View the Powerpoint slideshow used in Dan Frommelt's presentation on Web Standards.

Dan Frommelt is the Web coordinator for the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and an executive committee member of the Campus Web Council of Wisconsin. This video presentation was given at the Campus Web Council of Wisconsin's summer meeting held at UW-Madison in the summer of 2004. The presentation deals with explaining what Web Standards are, the benefits of using them, and gives HTML and CSS examples. The video was filmed by Christine Olson.

The presentation is 48 minutes long, but is hosted as a streaming video so you can watch just part of it now and jump back to the point where you left off at a later time if you like. All of the links referenced in the presentation are listed at the bottom of this page.

Web Standards and Accessibility

View the presentation given by Matt Merrill on using Web standards to make your site more accessible.

Places to learn more about Web Standards

• List of very useful Resources from the Campus Web Council of Wisconsin's Web site. They also have a CWCW page on Web Standards as well.
• A List Apart's Web site. Lots of articles and links dealing with Web Standards and all aspects of designing Web pages.
• The CSS Zen Garden. This site create by David Shea is dedicated to showing how using Web Standards and the latest Cascading Style Sheets techniques can generate amazing looking sites. You might want to check out David Shea's Mezzoblue Web site as well for thoughts on trends and designs.
• The Web Standards Project. A grassroots coalition fighting for Standards that ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
• List of useful Webmaster resources from Jeffrey Zeldmen that deals with accessibility, Web Standards, CSS, etc.
• List of CSS links from Eric Meyer's Web site. Excellent list of resources for learning more about CSS. You might want to read Eric Meyer's blog and Web site as well.

Books for further reading

• Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm. This book provides HTML and CSS examples that shows how things are typically done on Web pages and then shows examples of better code and techniques using Web Standards.
• Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldmen. This book is a a detailed look at the benefits and rationale for using Web Standards.
• Eric Meyer on CSS by Eric Meyer. This book walks you through you through projects step by step to show how Cascading Style Sheets are used to set up the page. The projects are ones that are applicable to everyday use.
• More Eric Meyer on CSS by Eric Meyer. This is a sequel to his previous book. It also walks you through you through all new projects step by step to show how Cascading Style Sheets are used to set up the page. The projects are ones that are applicable to everyday use.

Links referenced in the presentation

• Information from the Presentation (http://www.uwplatt.edu/web/webstandards/).
• The W3C Consortium (http://www.w3.org).
• About Web Standards (http://www.webstandards.org/about/).
• Hypertext markup language (http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/).
• Validate your markup (http://validator.w3.org).
• Tables should not be used for layout (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#h-11.1).
• The CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com).
• What is the information superhighway? (http://www.nortropic.com/lis341/cgold/superway.html).
• Slashdot example (http://www.uwplatt.edu/~web/webstandards/slashdot.html).
• Slashdot traffic (http://slashdot.org/faq/slashmeta.shtml#sm300).
• Article about retooling Slashdot (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slashdot/).