Web Standards: Better Browsers - Brighter Future
A promising development for the future of the web has been in the works for the past five years. An increasing number of users have switched to web browsers like Firefox, Opera, and Safari [wikipedia] , helping to usher in the era of modern, standards-compliant websites. These browsers are heroes for the web development community, as they provide excellent support for W3C web standards. However, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still the most commonly used web browser throughout the world, accounting for slightly more than eighty percent of the browser market right now [wikipedia] . For those of us working in web development, this fact presents a daily hurdle, as Internet Explorer's support for modern web standards has traditionally been lacking. Developers write web page code that works with standards-compliant browsers and then they painstakingly write fixes or "hacks" for the code (in a bizarre and contrived fashion) to get the pages working in IE. This process can discourage a developer from being creative with his or her usage of existing web standards, but - there is hope on the horizon. With Microsoft's release of Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006, the challenge of creating standards-compliant websites has begun to diminish. IE7 fixes many of the Internet Explorer quirks that have plagued developers since the widespread adoption of HTML and CSS, and it now supports some features that have long been available in competing browsers.
Throughout 2007, more users will be upgrading their web browsers to Internet Explorer 7 or switching to alternative browsers. As a direct consequence, web designers, developers, and authors will further shift toward the uniform usage of web standards. So what does this imply? How about a rich user experience regardless of the way the Internet is accessed. It won't matter whether you're visiting a site on your office desktop, your mobile phone, or your next-generation refrigerator - you'll have full access to a site's content and features. How about accessibility for all. Users with disabilities will not be hindered from using any part of a site. And how about lower development, maintenance, and hosting costs. Websites designed with modern standards are much easier to maintain, modify, and extend than those created with the design methodologies popularized in the late nineties. Such sites also use less bandwidth, because modern pages are composed of smaller files than their ancestors.
At Capstrat, we're committed to keeping up with the web. We're ready for the next generation of web browsers, and we are prepared to utilize these changing technologies to their maximum potential. Whether you have an aging site that could use a facelift or you need a new site built from the ground up, our designers, developers, and communications experts will help your business or organization achieve the future-ready web presence that you need to succeed in this digital age.
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