Web Standards Project
Encyclopedia
The Web Standards Project (WaSP) is a group of professional web developers dedicated to disseminating and encouraging the use of the web standards
recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium
, along with other groups and standards bodies.
Founded in 1998, The Web Standards Project campaigns for standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility
and long-term viability of any document published on the Web. WaSP works with browser companies, authoring tool makers, and peers to encourage them to use these standards, since they "are carefully designed to deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users".
in 1998. By 2001, the group had achieved its primary goal of persuading Microsoft, Netscape, Opera, and other browser makers to accurately and completely support HTML 4.01/XHTML 1.0, CSS1, and ECMAScript. Had browser makers not been persuaded to do so, the Web would likely have fractured into pockets of incompatible content, with various websites available only to people who possessed the right browser. In addition to streamlining web development and significantly lowering its cost, support for common web standards enabled the development of the semantic web. By marking up content in semantic (X)HTML, front-end developers make a site's content more available to search engines, more accessible to people with disabilities, and more available to the world beyond the desktop (e.g. mobile).
Founding members of the project moved on in 2002 but continued to evangelize web standards to design and business audiences.
The Web Standards Project is now primarily an educational organization and is currently (July 2011) led by Derek Featherstone, Aaron Gustafson, and Glenda Sims
Previous project leaders were:
There are members that are invited to work on ad hoc initiatives, the Buzz Blog and other content areas of the site.
users, they are impacting the progress of standards adoption in the most effective way possible.
Adobe Task Force: Focuses on improving web standards compliance in products from Adobe Systems
. Was named the Dreamweaver Task Force until 2008-03-10.
Education Task Force : Works with institutions of higher education
to promote instruction of Web standards and standards-compliant public sites.
Microsoft Task Force: Works with the Internet Explorer
and Web platform tools team.
Accessibility Task Force: Works with organizations, vendors and others to promote Web accessibility.
International Liaison Group: A member is "an active advocate for Web standards and best practices either in their country
of origin or domicile."
The Street Team: Organizing community events to promote web standards.
The DOM Scripting task force, although still listed on WaSP's website, is not active any more. Its purpose was to focus on interoperable client-side scripting
, through explaining and promoting the DOM
standards from W3C and the ECMAScript
Standard, and concepts like progressive enhancement
, graceful degradation and unobtrusive scripting. These best practice approaches have been called DOM scripting
to differentiate them from earlier perceived bad uses of DHTML
.
Web standards
Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building web sites,...
recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
, along with other groups and standards bodies.
Founded in 1998, The Web Standards Project campaigns for standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility
Web accessibility
Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality...
and long-term viability of any document published on the Web. WaSP works with browser companies, authoring tool makers, and peers to encourage them to use these standards, since they "are carefully designed to deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users".
Organization
The Web Standards Project began as a grassroots coalition "fighting for standards in our [web] browsers" founded by George Olsen, Glenn Davis, and Jeffrey ZeldmanJeffrey Zeldman
- External links :* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * , , and A List Apart Web Surveys* * , "Boagworld", 2010-03-31* "InformIT Network"* , Khoi Vinh's Subtraction, 2006-10-10* , "DMXzone.com"* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *...
in 1998. By 2001, the group had achieved its primary goal of persuading Microsoft, Netscape, Opera, and other browser makers to accurately and completely support HTML 4.01/XHTML 1.0, CSS1, and ECMAScript. Had browser makers not been persuaded to do so, the Web would likely have fractured into pockets of incompatible content, with various websites available only to people who possessed the right browser. In addition to streamlining web development and significantly lowering its cost, support for common web standards enabled the development of the semantic web. By marking up content in semantic (X)HTML, front-end developers make a site's content more available to search engines, more accessible to people with disabilities, and more available to the world beyond the desktop (e.g. mobile).
Founding members of the project moved on in 2002 but continued to evangelize web standards to design and business audiences.
The Web Standards Project is now primarily an educational organization and is currently (July 2011) led by Derek Featherstone, Aaron Gustafson, and Glenda Sims
Previous project leaders were:
- George Olsen (1998-1999)
- Jeffrey ZeldmanJeffrey Zeldman- External links :* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * , , and A List Apart Web Surveys* * , "Boagworld", 2010-03-31* "InformIT Network"* , Khoi Vinh's Subtraction, 2006-10-10* , "DMXzone.com"* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *...
(1999-2002) - Steven Champeon (2002-2004)
- Molly Holzschlag (2004-2006)
- Kimberly Blessing and Drew McLellan (2006-2008)
There are members that are invited to work on ad hoc initiatives, the Buzz Blog and other content areas of the site.
Task forces
The Web Standards Project also hosts projects focused on bringing relevant organizations closer to standards-compliance, dubbed Task Forces. By working with the larger organizations providing common tools to internetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
users, they are impacting the progress of standards adoption in the most effective way possible.
Adobe Task Force: Focuses on improving web standards compliance in products from Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
. Was named the Dreamweaver Task Force until 2008-03-10.
Education Task Force : Works with institutions of higher education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
to promote instruction of Web standards and standards-compliant public sites.
Microsoft Task Force: Works with the Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
and Web platform tools team.
Accessibility Task Force: Works with organizations, vendors and others to promote Web accessibility.
International Liaison Group: A member is "an active advocate for Web standards and best practices either in their country
Country
A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...
of origin or domicile."
The Street Team: Organizing community events to promote web standards.
The DOM Scripting task force, although still listed on WaSP's website, is not active any more. Its purpose was to focus on interoperable client-side scripting
Client-side scripting
Client-side scripting generally refers to the class of computer programs on the web that are executed client-side, by the user's web browser, instead of server-side...
, through explaining and promoting the DOM
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
standards from W3C and the ECMAScript
ECMAScript
ECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
Standard, and concepts like progressive enhancement
Progressive enhancement
Progressive enhancement is a strategy for web design that emphasizes accessibility, semantic HTML markup, and external stylesheet and scripting technologies...
, graceful degradation and unobtrusive scripting. These best practice approaches have been called DOM scripting
DOM scripting
The term DOM scripting refers to programmatically accessing the Document Object Model . In common usage, DOM scripting implies JavaScript. DOM scripting has its roots in Dynamic HTML , but is more structured. It is the third pillar in the web standards movement.-DHTML vs...
to differentiate them from earlier perceived bad uses of DHTML
Dynamic HTML
Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is an umbrella term for a collection of technologies used together to create interactive and animated web sites by using a combination of a static markup language , a client-side scripting language , a presentation definition language , and the Document Object Model.DHTML...
.
Activities
- The Acid1Acid1Acid1, originally called the Box Acid Test, is a test page for web browsers. It was developed in October 1998 and was important in establishing baseline interoperability between early web browsers, especially for the Cascading Style Sheets 1.0 specification...
test allows browsers and other rendering engines to test compliance with HTML 4 and CSS 1 specifications. - The Acid2Acid2Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to expose web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. Named after the acid test for gold, it was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading...
test allows browsers and other rendering engines to test compliance with CSSCSS-Computing:*Cascading Style Sheets, a language used to describe the style of document presentations in web development*Central Structure Store in the PHIGS 3D API*Closed source software, software that is not distributed with source code...
1 and 2 specifications. - The Acid3Acid3Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model and JavaScript....
test allows browsers and other rendering engines to test compliance with CSS 2.1, DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
, and EcmaScriptECMAScriptECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
specifications. - The Acid4 test, to be created at a later date, will allow browsers and other rendering engines to test compliance with SVGScalable Vector GraphicsScalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...
, CSS 3, and mixed namespaces.