How To Build A Site To Web Standards: The Official Checklist

"The term Web standards can mean different things to different people. For some, it is 'table-free sites', for others it is 'using valid code'. However, Web standards are much broader than that.

A site built to Web standards should adhere to standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, DOM, MathML, SVG etc) and pursue best practices (valid code, accessible code, semantically correct code, user-friendly URLs etc).

In other words, a site built to Web standards should ideally be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly.

"Here is a simple checklist reference that can be used to show the breadth of Web standards, can be adopted as a handy tool for developers during the production phase of websites and can also be utilized as an aid for developers who are interested in moving towards Web standards for the first time.

The checklist:



1. Quality of code

Does the site use a correct Doctype?

Does the site use a Character set?

Does the site use Valid (X)HTML?

Does the site use Valid CSS?

Does the site use any CSS hacks?

Does the site use unnecessary classes or ids?

Is the code well structured?

Does the site have any broken links?

How does the site perform in terms of speed/page size?

Does the site have JavaScript errors?

2. Degree of separation between content and presentation

Does the site use CSS for all presentation aspects (fonts, colour, padding, borders etc)?

Are all decorative images in the CSS, or do they appear in the (X)HTML?

and also:

3. Accessibility for users



4. Accessibility for devices



5. Basic Usability



6. Site management

This list was first outlined in a rough form on the Web Standards Mail list in May 2004. It was presented to the Sydney Web Standards Group on 5 August 2004. It is also available as a downloadable pdf checklist for developers.

The presentation is also available in Bulgarian, thanks to Boby Dimitrov, in Chinese, thanks to Jjgod Jiang and in Spanish, thanks to Osvaldo Rainero.