Web Standards: The Guidelines That Every Developer Should Know

9 min readJan 15, 2024

The “Internet” has Standards?

What are web standards and who makes web standards? The internet is a vast platform/medium of information and interfaces, and like any platform — standards aid in it functioning optimally.

Web standards are official but non-proprietary (not trademarked) guidelines that carry technical specifications used to define components of the World Wide Web. These standards were created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to promote design code uniformity and best practices on the web. Web standards fortify the weblinks you visit by standardizing the way a website can interact with assistive technologies.

Though web standards aren’t legally enforceable (and can be referred to as recommendations), they are regarded as sound principles for which to govern web functionality and benefit the web ecosystem (e.g., developers, content creators, marketers, and web surfers).

There are three major organizations (to include W3C) that influence and publish universal web standards:

With the internet (a.k.a. the World Wide Web) being a critical information platform in the lives of many, understanding the web standards that govern is important. Web standards ensure that the internet remains open, that it has a level of development integrity with indexed websites on it, and can be readily accessible to anyone with connectivity.

The History of Web Standards

Tim Berners-Lee, a CERN researcher at the time, created the Enquire tool in 1989. The Enquire tool (the precursor iteration to the World Wide Web) quickly evolved into a pre-standard internet as everyone knows it. By 1990, with the internet in its infancy, Berners-Lee set about writing three technology specifications to guide the growth of the web:

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Uniform Resource Identifier (URL)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

Those specifications became the foundational basis for the first web standard organization, W3C in 1994. The W3C’s mission emphasizes maximizing the internet’s potential through the development protocols and guidelines that foster constant growth for the web interfaces. Their mission is achieved through the creation/publishing of recommendations that have been adopted universally as standards and guidelines for web functionality and development. From 1994 to present day, W3C has published over 100 web standards (those W3C Recommendations we mentioned previously) and counting.

The Nigerian Math Wiz & The Internet

There is a whole continent-size of claims on when and who actually created the internet. But at the foundation of this debate (or discussion), many in the technical community seem to land on the 1980s being an innovative era in the development of what would become in recent times — that thing you now can’t live without — the Internet.

In comes a computing genius hailing from Nigeria, Philip Emeagwali, who the internet owes much of its creation to. Emeagwali developed the formula that allowed many computers to communicate to each other at once. In tech jargon — programming each of the microprocessors to interact with 6 neighboring microprocessors at the same time.

While completing a doctoral thesis at University of Michigan (U-M) on simulating oil reservoir detection using a supercomputer, and being inspired by a sci-fi story on weather prediction, Emeagwali set about utilizing thousands of microprocessors to do aligned computation instead of using eight expensively arduous supercomputers.

Around 1987, in preparation for his experiment, he was petitioned and was granted access to use the abandoned machine called the Connection Machine located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (yep, that one noted in the summer blockbuster movie hit, Oppenheimer). This machine was designed to run over 65,000 interconnected microprocessors. Remotely from his U-M location, Emeagwali coordinated and ran his parameters and programming, which correctly computed the amount of oil in the simulated reservoir while allowing the Connection Machine to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second. This introduced an affordable way to get computers talking quicker and more accurately.

Soon the oil industry jumped on this technology and dubbed it the Hyperball International Network, which led to further development of a virtual world wide web of high-speed digital communication.

In 1989, Emeagwali earned the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers’ Gordon Bell Prize (the Nobel Prize of computing) and was later lauded as one of the “Fathers of the Internet.” Of his notable achievement, President Bill Clinton likened him to the “Bill Gates of Africa.”

The Internet as we know it today did not cross my mind… I was hypothesizing a planetary-sized supercomputer and, broadly speaking, my focus was on how the present creates the future and how our image of the future inspires the present.
— Philip Emeagwali, TIME.com

The Internet Before Web Standards

Prior to web standards, the internet was pretty rudimentary. There were no fixed rules on how a browser should present information to those requesting it (i.e., web surfers) or even how content should be created. The internet was lacking in best practices to guide it on an optimized path. A web developer/content creator would design a website to fit the browser for which it was intended.

Pre-standardized internet was like the other WWW (wild wild west). YIKES!

Essentially, web developers had to create multiple of the same website for it to even be viewable in different browsers (refracting a website). TORTURE.

Web standards ushered in compatibility and uniformity in web design, and service/browser providers were encouraged to adapt and adhere to them. The standards fostered cooperation between services/browser providers and eased the burden for web developers.

The Five W3C’s Revolutionary Ideas that Led to the Internet Today

The WC3 organization has been the most influential and foundationally beneficial to the internet. Their revolutionary, yet novel, ideas led to the structured internet we have today.

Net-Neutrality (Nondiscrimination): This principle stipulates that despite the level quality of your internet service, that you should still be able to communicate on the internet at a universally-optimized level. Internet speed should not dictate nor provide advantages on how you communicate over the web.
Bottom-up Design (Code): The code was/is developed and shared in total transparency of everyone who was interested. It has always been encouraged that anyone interested in Web 6.0 standards to participate and experiment in design.
Universality (Hardware Language): All hardware involved has to speak the same language despite beliefs, location, culture, etc.
Consensus (Standards are Recommendations): The standards work when everyone agrees to use them in the best interest of everyone. Though not legally mandatory, the internet doesn’t function properly without utilizing the standards.
Decentralization (Open Platform): There is no authority to grant permissions on what can be posted on the internet.

W3C’s Most Common Standards to Know

Here are some common W3C standards (compromising language, style elements, and accessibility ) that have most transformed the internet into what we see today.

HTML — Created as a universal language of the web, it is accessible accessible by any device/browser. HTML5 is the current version which allows web developers/designers to build more diverse, optimized applications and websites.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) — CSS goes hand in hand with HTML and serves as a style-assigning mechanism for changing the appearance of HTML and XML elements. The introduction of CSS reduced the file size related to each web page (on the frontend) and allowed a more streamlined, structured web. This simplification of element organization and style in web design revolutionized the web visually while also making it more accessible, as well as easier to use and design for.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) — Similar to HTML, but this language allows you to define your own element set instead of having them fixed. Typically, ML/AI uses XML because web standard-compliant support can be inconsistent for XML in browsers.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) — These guidelines ensure the web is accessible to people with disabilities and/or changing abilities (e.g., the elderly). Per the Center for Disease Control (CDC), roughly 25% of the U.S. population has a disability (physical, visual, auditory, cognitive, verbal, and/or learning).

Advantages of Having Web Standards

Here are five of the biggest advantages of having standards that guide the web:

Simplified Web Design — Standardize rules that every developer/designer can follow = a more simplified development process.
Versatility in Conversion — Compliant content can easily be converted to other formats (think Excel or PDF documents). This allows for quicker usage of the information within webpages.
Visibility — Improved visibility in web searches, aids in content presence within search engines. This leads to the information in your content being evaluated more effectively and indexed accurately.
Accessibility — Allowing web pages to be understood by people using browsers accessibility components (e.g., voice browsers, hand-held browsers, braille browsers) ensures that the internet remains open and readily available to anyone who wants to participate in/access it.
Comprehensive Versioning & Iteration — A website change hands in the servicing of it by the web developer, designer, and/or webmaster. It’s crucial that those who touch the site can understand the code and modify easily. Web standards offer protocols that every web development and/or maintenance team can align to and follow.

Web Design Size Standards — Best Practices

Solidify Cross-browser Compatibility. Websites should work on as many devices as possible. This includes using technologies that all the browsers support. Consider browsers that can handle them (progressive enhancement) which delivers a better user experience. Write code that is usable in older browsers (graceful degradation), and incorporate user interface/experience (UI/UX) testing for that. (Smashing Magazine suggests BrowserStack or Open Device Lab, as emulators or online testing services can work when you are missing access to adequate device testing combinations)
Ensure Responsive Web Design. This is the practice that focuses on the functionality and layout flexibility of your web platform, which helps with it automatically adapting to different browsers (again, think gracefully degradation). Understand how your site can be viewed on a cell phone (single-column layout) or tablet, vs. desktop computer (widescreen browsers) — or even gaming console.

Optimize Performance. This practice means focusing on website load times and speed. Making the website, platform, and/or application intuitive ensures ease of use and increases the positive experience for users. Implementing this practice thwarts user frustration and withdrawal from the intended website/platform.
Implement Accessibility Guidelines. Make your websites accessible by as many groups as possible. Infuse diversity and inclusion, and inclusive design where possible. Consider the user experience of people with various impairments, disabilities, and changing abilities (i.e., the elderly).
Internationalization (Languages). Including different translations on your site broadens access to your content amongst different cultures for their understanding. Ensure that the text is clear and concise. There are technical considerations such as altering your site layout so that it’s still functional right-to-left, or even vertical languages (e.g., east Asian calligraphy-based writing such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean).
Maintain Privacy & Security. Only collect data that you absolutely need to function your site and provide informed consent (i.e., accept/deny cookies) for your web surfers. Securely construct your website in a protected way so that adversarial threats cannot hack yours/user information captured from it.

Reference Links & Further Reading:

Remember, web development is an innovative endeavor. These standards are meant to empower and fortitude your build.

Go forth and design!