Web standards see increasing adoption

Posted by multippt

Years ago few cared about web standards laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium. Today’s a little different, as there are probably a lot more people following standards - even monopolies like Microsoft.

The past
Ever since the browser wars, there were certainly more browsers to choose from. However, each browser is designed differently, and with it comes its incompatibilities. Although there was sufficient time for the eventual winner (which is Internet Explorer) of the first browser war, not much was done to actually conform to the new web standards. 

Making sites look the same across browsers require the usage of “hacks” which in its own already defies standards. This practise remained in popularity until the second browser war, which still continues today. The newcomer - Firefox, has its strengths, making it much potent compared to Internet Explorer, especially in the area of standard-compliance.

Closer to modern
Over time, new standards were made, notably Extended HTML, and Cascading Style Sheets  version 2 and 3. There was adoption, but not fast enough. By 2006, only a small fraction of sites considered taking up XHTML, let alone CSS 2. This slow adoption rate was caused by a few hurdles on several sides - the browsers, and the webmasters. Some browsers, such as Internet Explorer did not rectify some issues with its support for web standards until 2007, which was when Internet Explorer 7 came. Fortunately, there were others that were fast to adopt such new standards, such as the open-source Firefox and Opera browsers.

On the webmasters side, it is sad to say that some may not even have heard of standards (after all, the internet is supposed to be an open place). Experimentation was all it takes to get a design, which was unlikely tested on more than 1 browser. However, those who do hear about web standards tried their hand at it, and those who did managed to follow the standards deserves some praise.

Today 
Today, we see more sites that are increasingly adopting the web standards set out by W3. There are now 12 times more sites following web standards compared to years ago. Part of that increase in adoption is initiated by some projects, such as Wordpress which began using standard-compliant XHTML in its Content Management System (known as a weblog), and Wikipedia which also adopts XHTML. Due to this initiation, web designers find it an incentive to make their layouts standard-complaint. In addition, ever since the release of the validators by W3C, adopting standards has become much easier than before. Bearing that new “XHTML complaint” sticker has become a new fad.

However, increasing does not mean that a lot of people are adopting it. As much as 70% of all sites still hasn’t adopted the web standards - even the largest Internet giants have yet to do it. However, seeing as the browsers themselves are already attempting to “follow the rules”, these sites may or will eventually follow web standards.

Obstacles to adoption
We still do not see at least a 90% adoption rate of web standards even after 10 years (equivalent to 2/3 of the Internets current age) since they were set out. The main aim of web standards is to ensure that things work, and they work correctly for everyone. However, that aim will need decades to work, because of the problem of compatibility. The latest technologies and standards proposed by W3C, are not in implementation until several months later. This “big-gap” will cause the snail-pace adoption in web standards.

Even if a particular browser were to implement all such web standards, it would not be effective unless it has a majority share of the browser market. Updating browsers may not be easy either, especially if the browser is proprietary - e.g. in the case of Internet Explorer, users have to continually upgrade the Operating System so as to get the latest browser. In addition, not everyone knows about web standards - perhaps it was not well advertised, or just that not everyone is bringing it up.

Because of the browser’s slow adoption of web standards, webmasters and designers themselves are not too keen to follow web standards - either because their layouts look the same across browsers already (even though it does not pass validation), or that they want it to function the same way across browsers (bringing back to the compatibility problem).

Future
Adoption is slow even today, but it is a sure sign that it is growing. However, the problems of incompatibility may still continue to hinder the adoption of web standards even in the future.