Local Website Validation Survey

We recently conducted a survey about websites and web designers in the Asheboro, North Carolina area. We looked through web directories, designer portfolios, and search engines to find 130 websites designed by or for people in the local area. Each website was analyzed by the World Wide Web Consortium's Markup Validation Test Engine to check for standards compliance.

What is Standards Compliance, and is it important?

Standards Compliance is when a web site is designed to the standards set to that particular programming language. HTML, XML, and the others all have specific standards to ensure they work correctly. When a designer sticks to the language standard, they are giving their work several advantages:

Debugging different browsers
Using the validation tester, a designer can pin point which line of code is wrong and fix their errors that may be causing the site to display improperly.
Accessibility
Websites which are valid will be more likely to show up in different web browsers the same way. They will also be easier to understand by screen readers for the disabled.
Faster Page Loading
When a browser doesn't have to figure out errors and fix problems, it can render your page faster.
Easier to Maintain
Using a standard markup ensures that everyone can follow the same set of guidelines and coding styles. This makes it easier to understand by others who may be involved in maintaining the site.
Future Proof
Using the standards set to design a website makes it more likely to work and display the same further down the road. Read Is Your Website Compatible with IE 8?

Using the standards set for markup languages can greatly increase your web sites potential. It is agreed on by web professionals that using valid code can speed up your site, help it's search ability, accessibility, and maintainability.

Survey Results

The survey results of our 130 website validation test were far below what we expected. While we did expect to see a higher than average level of errors, we found that out of 130 websites tested, there was only one website that passed the validation test.

In the graph below, you are able to see how many sites failed and to what percentage they ranked.

Pie Chart of a Local Website Validation Test

There were a combined 5255 errors amongst the sites, with one containing more than 286 errors alone. That particular site had display issues in both Safari (Apple) and Firefox.

We have found that most of the errors are missing closed tags, missing alternate text, and missing Doctypes. Some browsers do not fix missing closed tags and may not be able to determine your doctype. This can lead to rendering issues, causing your site to show up broken on some browsers (such as Safari). Without a Doctype the browser doesn't know what it's trying to load, which can lead to broken sites and longer load times. Missing alternate text can directly affect the accessibility of screen readers as well as search results for your images.

Validating your website can be very beneficial to you and your goal. It is highly recommended that a designer adheres to the standards of the markup they are using, be it HTML 4 or XHTML 1.0 Strict. Follow the guidelines and don't try to cut corners.

About Dave

I am the founder of Asheboro Creative. I'm a PHP and MySQL developer that thinks CSS is the greatest thing since the knife that sliced bread. I am a stickler for validating our websites and love to check out design galleries.

Comments

w3cvalidation
04/14/10, 10:17am

Nice information, I really appreciate the way you presented.Thanks for sharing..