Category: Web design

I could give you all the arguments on why you should code your pages according to the current standard. I could tell you that if you are not turning out valid and semantic code that you are unprofessional and that you shouldn’t quit your day job. I could explain the purpose of separating markup from… Continue reading Why web standards?

Check out the new web standards discussion forums. Give it a try. Register and join in. 🙂

The code that Flash outputs is not standards compliant and embed tags do not validate because they are not part of the XHTML standard.

Note: The following series has been consolidated into one article here. Dump the WYSIWYG Do not use markup for presentation Include a proper doctype Validate your markup Validate your CSS Build for Firefox and hack for IE If you have a problem ask for help Let’s go through each of these steps in greater detail

Let’s face it. You can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. If you are allowing an application to turn out your markup then, unfortunately, you are a part of the problem. Yes, this includes Dreamweaver and GoLive. I am thoroughly convinced that these “web page editors” are for… Continue reading Dump the WYSIWYG

Tables are meant to be used for one thing and one thing only and that is the display of tabular data. Please, do not use tables for layout. It is much better left to CSS. Using tables for layout is a messy hack often used to “get pages to look the same in all browsers”.… Continue reading Do not use markup for presentation

You start your sentences with a capital letter; start your HTML with a DOCTYPE. It’s just basic grammar. – Mark Pilgrim from Dive Into Accessibility Using a complete doctype will switch your browser into standards mode. This will cause it to render the page exactly as you have instructed it (which may look awful but… Continue reading Include a proper Doctype

Developing a website without validating is like running around with a blindfold on. As soon as you ask for directions, don’t be surprised if the only answer you’ll get is “take your blindfold off”. – some guy named Jim Validate your markup here Validate your CSS here

Firefox is a standards aware browser. The authors are actively involved in squashing bugs and making it work the way it should. When FF is switched to standards mode with a proper doctype everything works as expected.