Web Development Standards
Vantix Systems prides itself in producing websites using the highest development standards. We use standards compliant XHTML for markup and CSS for presentation, as this provides many benefits. We go to great lengths to ensure our websites are standards compliant and accessible to all visitors.
Benefits of XHTML and CSS
- Cleaner, more logical markup
- XHTML brings uniformity to document structure. The rules of XHTML help restore the structural integrity of documents that was lost during the web’s rapid commercial expansion between 1994 and 2001.
- Increased interoperability across different media and platforms
- Valid, well–formed XHTML documents can easily be viewed with wireless devices, Braille readers and other specialized web environments.
- Greater accessibility
- XHTML pages are more accessible than old–style HTML pages, and help comply with U.S. laws and accessibility guidelines. Taking care of accessibility means being able to provide web content to a larger audience, and increasing website usability.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) enable web designers and developers to separate structure from presentation, bringing a host of benefits. These include:
- Consistent look and feel across the website
- Separating content from presentation increases design consistency. With CSS, presentation is defined using a layout-oriented CSS language, which can be applied to a set of HTML documents, thus permitting a complete change of presentation for all the documents at once.
- Lower bandwidth usage/faster page loading
- HTML code is much more compact when used in conjunction with CSS, making it possible to transform table based layouts into CSS based layouts. According to recent case studies and articles, using CSS based layouts can reduce page size by 25-50%. Reduced page size leads to faster site loading, which translates into better user experience.
- Better search engine rankings
- Being well-placed in search engines is one of the hardest and most important challenges faced by webmasters. Separating presentation from content increases the content to markup ratio, making CSS-based documents more relevant with regard to the search terms, which as a consequence produces higher rankings in search results.
- Cross-browser compatibility
- An important concern for web developers is web pages being displayed differently in various browsers. Valid, well-formed code significantly reduces rendering differences in various browsers.
- Future-friendly technology
- A large portion of information is produced for the web using invalid HTML, which happens to be displayed correctly in permissive older browsers. As web technology progresses, web browsers may eventually become either less permissive, or behave differently, when given invalid markup. Using valid, standards-compliant markup, such as XHTML and CSS, will ensure that data will be reusable with future technology.
Vantix Website
We have made every effort to ensure that our own website meets the highest accessibility standards - so that you can be confident we can deliver this service for your website.
If you would like to know more about web accessibility, validation and standards please contact us.