You and I both know the importance of web standards, but what about your clients? If you were to ask if a web standards compliant web site is important to them, you’ll probably be met with a stare not too dissimilar to a deer in headlights.
In all likelihood your client doesn’t know what web standards are, or they have a grossly uninformed interpretation. One of my clients once said very matter-of-fact “it’s making the design look a certain way”. Kudos for trying. But guesses like that personify the standard interpretation of what clients think web standards are – that it has something to do with how the web site looks, but that is completely false.
Given clients aren’t in the web design business, it would be unfair to criticize them for misinterpreting the meaning of web standards. But I firmly believe that designers have a sworn duty to educate their clients of why web standards should be an important factor to them. In order to do that though you have to show them the money saving benefits – not the development benefits (although there are plenty of them too). Here’s how.
- Standards based sites work better across multiple browsers, operating systems and portable devices, and therefore maximize the potential customer base.
- You are assisting the future proof-ability of your site.
- Standards based sites are typically more accessible for people who rely on assistive technologies to get around the web (screen readers or keyboard navigation for example).
- Standards based sites typically have a smaller code footprint, which means faster loading and lower bandwidth, which means a better user experience.
- Standards based sites typically have semantic structure, which translates into better search engine indexing.
- By conforming to an already established strict set of development rules, your web designers/developers will be able to implement changes far quicker than on a site that doesn’t conform to W3C standards.
As you can see all of these reasons translate into monetary benefits.
But isn’t conformism bad?
The term ‘web standards’ can have negative connotations associated with it to those outside the industry. ‘Standards’ can easily be interpreted as ‘limited’ or ‘conformist’, so you’ll need to emphasize that conforming to web standards has absolutely nothing to do with how the web site design looks (that’s the presentation layer) and nothing to do with how users interact with it. It’s about how the design is put together ‘under the hood‘ – for lack of a better metaphor – and completely invisible to the user.
This should put their mind at ease, just in case.
