Benefits of Valid and Accessible Code
A Platform for Launching Valid Markup
One of our core values at Markup Factory is to help web designers and their clients produce websites that are filled with valid and accessible code. To address this, we've built all of the components of Markup Factory with this goal in mind. But we also recognize that it is ultimately the task of the web designer to ensure that the website template is built to standards.
Because of the flexibility of the Markup Factory Template Engine, designers are free to use any HTML, XHTML, and CSS markup desired to create templates. We at Markup Factory encourage you to write accessible and valid code for many reasons and we advocate adherence to web standards. Accessible and valid code is best practice in modern web design. There are numerous resources available on the Internet to help today's web designer write accessible and valid code. The benefits of writing your code in this manner include the following:
- Browser Compatibility
Modern web browsers are increasingly becoming more standards compliant. As web browsers continue to improve, your accessible and valid code will render more consistently on web browsers with less hacking and incompatibilities to contend with.
- Search-ability
Today's search engines often rank websites with valid code higher than those without. Creating valid code also helps search engines more properly index your content and gives you the opportunity to place important keywords in some of the tags that are required by valid code.
- Faster Page Load Times
Because of the way that valid code is constructed, it will often be less bulky and less resource intensive to render. Browsers can render CSS based layouts much faster than table based layouts. This provides your visitors with a more efficient and pleasurable experience as they browse your website.
- Accessibility
The term accessibility derives it's name from allowing your content to be accessible to individuals with impairments. Although a minority, it is often important for these individuals to be able to access the information on your website. These individuals sometimes employ the use of screen readers and other devices that work based on the requirements of accessible and valid code.
- Maintainability
Writing valid code often makes maintenance of the website much easier. The code tends to be lighter weight and other designers will immediately see how your code was put together. With CSS based layouts, it is easy to quickly roll out a site wide style update or reorganization of your structure. Adding navigational buttons to CSS based layouts is dramatically more simple than other methods.
- Usability
The requirements for writing valid code inherently encourage the designer to create a more usable website. Many of the benefits listed above contribute to better usability in direct and indirect ways.
- Increased Sales and Conversions
Coupled with good design, better usability often translates into increased sales or conversions. This is a very tangible and measurable benefit to writing valid and accessible code.
Below is a list of some of our favorite resources for helping you learn about and create valid and accessible template code: