April 4th, 2007
Tell Your Small Clients About Standardization
I came across a good article yesterday with the title, The business case for Web standards-based development. I like the break down at the end of the article of all the benefits that come with designing a standards compliant web site.
It got me thinking about the clients I’ve had in the last year. Most of them don’t really know or care that I did my best to adhere to standards when designing their sites, and I think that’s probably typical of most of the clients of freelance designers. In truth that’s probably my fault. I’ve always made the assumption that the advantages of standardization really only apply to larger sites with high profiles and lots of traffic. As I look at this list, though, many of them hold just as much appeal for the “little guy”.
Reduced file size is a great example. At first glance, I thought the main point of this is keeping bandwidth costs down. For a small site, they just aren’t generating enough traffic for this to be a concern. In fact, reaching a point where they exceed their bandwidth capacity might feel like something of a milestone! I was completely overlooking the effect that reduced file size has on the individual user. The page loads faster. Whether you have 10,000 visitors a day or just 10, a quickly loading page should be a priority. I should point out to my clients that the standards-compliant design I offer makes their site faster.
Separation of content and presentational mark-up has the obvious benefit of making it easier to meet strict accessibility requirements. Whether they are correct or not, some of my clients wouldn’t think that making their site play nice with a screen reader would improve their bottom dollar. Every one of them would perk up, though, if I explained that standardization means making their site play nice with search engines.
Up to this point I’ve made efforts to standardize my work mostly as a matter of professional pride. If I’m going to all the trouble, though, I might as well make use of it as a selling point.
