What's the impact?

Choosing to code in either HTML 5 or XHTML 1.0 has a direct impact on the cost of the web development project. The various strengths and weaknesses of each approach will be discussed at your initial consultation. We can develop sites using either language depending on your specific needs.

HTML 5: is the latest evolution of the standard that defines HTML and is the current standard markup language used to code web pages. The term represents two different concepts: It is a new version of the language HTML, with new elements, attributes, and behaviors, and a larger set of technologies that allows more diverse and powerful Web sites and applications. This set is sometimes called HTML5 & friends and often shortened to just HTML5.

XHTML 1.0: XHTML is a strict subset of HTML that eliminates the need for table structured pages. Tables are generally used for data layout only. The layout of the page content is controlled by external CSS2 stylesheets. This ensures that content dominates each page and reduces the amount of code on the page.

Informational Article: The Business Value of Web Standards

Throughout the entire design process we'll be in constant contact with you, to ensure you'll be completely satisfied with the finished product.

Advantages.

• Separates style and content
• Facilitates page indexing by search engines since the spiders and robots that crawl the page during the indexing process can more directly access the content
• Creates lighter pages that load faster
• Facilitates 508 Accessibility Compliance by simplifying the markup and making room for the many attributes that must be used in compliance coding
• Excellent layout adaptability - allows page elements and sections to be coded in any order
• Facilitates XML based content delivery and the use of MATHML and SVG
• Facilitates web site maintenance by requiring the use of CSS3 stylesheets which can, to a great degree, globally control the layout and styling of the site. Changes and updates can be implemented to the whole site very quickly.
• Broad device independence - since the content of the page is independent of the style, multiple stylesheets can be used to optimize content delivery for WAP-enabled devices, printers, browsers, etc.
• Forward compatibility - XHTML 1.0 is the first step toward a modular and extensible web environment based on XML.

Disadvantages.

• CSS3 is not fully supported by some browsers, and is least supported by the most popular browser, Internet Explorer. This lack of support for the standard requires thorough cross-browser testing adding expense and time to web development projects.
• Browsers which don’t support CSS or have CSS turned off will not render the page visually as the designer intended although content will still be rendered.