Web standardization

Web standards

The two main Hypertext language standards are HTML and XHTML. XHTML standard being dedicated to replace HTML standard. The main difference between HTML and the more recent XHTML is that XHTML requires that style definition is externalised in a separate CSS. This separation has many advantages, as it makes it possible to define a unique global style for several elements, thus reducing Web page weight and easing appearance updates. These Web standards are developed and maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an independent non-profit organisation.

The main purpose of conformity with these standards is to ensure multi-platfom compatibility — which means between operating systems and browsers — but also to ensure the consistency of a Website’s appearance in all these platforms.

Sosign Interactive offers different types of Web standardization :

• programming of templates
• quality assurance and validation
• set-up of validation server

 Feel free to contact us for further information.

Accessibility standards

Web accessibility makes it possible for people with disabilities to access a Website’s content, more specifically : to understand, to browse, and to interact with a Website. The mandate of one W3C initiative is to improve global accessibility of the Internet for handicapped people. This initiative is named : WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative). Several standards have risen from this initiative, and the main standard regarding Web pages is : WCAG 1.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).

Web accessibility covers any kind of disability that can affect access to a Website, including disabilities that are visual, auditory, physical, or mental. The document “How People with Disabilities Use the Web” from W3C describes in detail how different kinds of disabilities can affect Web experience including scenarios in which people with various disabilities use the Web.

 Web ergonomics and accessibility

Syndication

With the appearance of "blogs," new specifications appeared to allow article aggregation : that is, the grouping of Website content in a single file. This kind of file has multiple purposes. For example, it can allow the viewing of newly published articles in external software, or it can automatically syndicate on another Website. There are two main standards regarding syndication, RSS and Atom :

• RSS (RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) standard is based on XML 1.0 (eXtensible Markup Language). It is the most used standard.
• Atom standard is also based on XML language and is similar to the different versions of RSS, but it tends to be more flexible. It is described in a document RFC (Request For Comments), it is the RFC 4287 published by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), a non-profit organization.

 syndication applied to content management systems : Content management