Developers are responsible for creating standards-compliant websites and applications.
To comply with Web standards, websites and applications must have valid HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They must also meet accessibility and semantic guidelines. Full compliance also includes valid RSS, metadata, XML, SVG, device APIs and object and script embedding as well as proper settings for character encoding.
Web standards are set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). For a complete, visit the W3C Web Design and Applications Standards website.
Validators
Developers can determine if their sites or applications are standards compliant by using the following W3C validators:
- Unicorn – W3C's Unified Validator
- MarkUp Validator – Also known as the HTML validator
- CSS Validator
Quality Assurance Tools
In addition to the validators, W3C provides useful quality assurance tools: