Web Standards Checklist
// March 24th, 2010 // No Comments » // Websites
How to make a website on web standards
A web standards 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.
About the checklist
This is not an uber-checklist. There are probably many items that could be added. More importantly, it should not be seen as a list of items that must be addressed on every site that you develop. It is simply a guide that can be used:
* to show the breadth of web standards
* as a handy tool for developers during the production phase of websites
* as an aid for developers who are interested in moving towards web standards
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



