Contrary to popular belief the internet is not the Wild West. It does in fact have a governing body and rules of conduct.
According to this current tally 43.3% of all desktop web users use some version of Internet Explorer to browse the web. Another 46.6% use the Firefox web browser.
Governance for these browsers is provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which sets the international standard. Browsers that follow these standards do 2 things:
- They help provide a consistent and more pleasant experience for internet users.
- Particularly pertinent for this blog, browsers that use W3C standards mean I spend less time testing the websites I develop. This means less billable hours to my clients.
The introduction of Internet Explorer 8 in addition to current versions of Firefox mean I will spend less time programming to fit versions of web browsers that are not W3C standard. Currently at least 30% of my web development time is spent making websites work for browsers that do not follow these standards.
The bottom line: adopting web standards now means a future of reduced website development costs.
With the introduction of Internet Explorer 8, the situation has improved, but keep in mind that Industry changes like these only came about as more and more websites followed web standards.
Demand that your site be standards compliant to ensure that web standards will continue to be adopted and help lower development costs.