Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

Buzz Archives: Action

Web Design Course Materials Licensed to W3C

As professional web builders we know that the web is constantly changing and our methods and practices must respond and adapt as well. There are so many new disciplines web professionals need to be know about, if not specizlized in, that weren’t around ten or even five years ago. It’s ...

By Christopher Schmitt | February 8th, 2012

HTML5 logo: W3C takes a step in the right direction

With a little back-pedalling, the W3C has moved away from their blanket characterization of modern web tech as “HTML5”.

By Chris Mills | January 28th, 2011

HTML5 logo: be proud, but don’t muddy the waters!

In which we ask that the W3C to come up with a new monicker for the umbrella of modern web technologies.

By Chris Mills | January 18th, 2011

Small Business Update

A while back I announced WaSP’s new small business outreach effort and, thanks to your help, we’ve been making great progress.

By Aaron Gustafson | August 5th, 2010

InterACT With Web Standards Book Released

You may have noticed that the InterACT curriculum team recently released its first book: InterACT With Web Standards: A Holistic Approach to Web Design. It is the first book released by WaSP, and it directly ties into the work that the Education Task Force and other contributors have put into the courses in the InterACT curriculum.

By Chris Casciano | June 9th, 2010

Six New Courses Added to the InterACT Curriculum

Today, six more essential courses join the WaSP InterACT curriculum to help schools prepare their students for a career working on the Web.

By Aarron Walter | March 17th, 2010

A New Direction and a New Project

In an effort to increase adoption of web standards, we’re going to try something new.

By Aaron Gustafson | February 2nd, 2010

Introducing The Open Web Education Alliance

The W3C recently announced an exciting new incubator group – The Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA) – that is certain to have a significant impact on helping web standards and best practices find their way into classrooms around the world.

By Aarron Walter | June 29th, 2009

InterAct translations and localizations

Work is well and truly underway to get WaSP InterAct translated into multiple languages. With an army of over thirty volunteers working in eighteen languages we hope to get localized versions of the Curriculum into schools colleges and universities near you soon.

By Henny Swan | May 11th, 2009

IE8 Has Arrived

With a greater focus on standards-compliance, it seems possible that Microsoft’s latest browser may redeem itself in the eyes of standards-savvy designers and developers.

By Aaron Gustafson | March 20th, 2009

The Dawn of the Education Era

We are proud to announce the WaSP InterAct Curriculum.

By Derek Featherstone | March 16th, 2009

Translations, 翻译, traducciones, Terjemahan, Перевод

There are lots of great resources and blogs around the world in many languages that spread the word about web standards. Every once in a while however I see a new article in English and I think to myself "What a fantastic write-up, but I wish everyone could read it". ...

By Henny Swan | February 27th, 2009

Web Standards in Indonesia – a university web developer perspective

When in Indonesia Bruce Lawson, co-lead of the Accessibility Task Force, got the opportunity to interview Widianto Nugroho from Institut Teknologi Bandung. What follows is the transcript of their chat as well as links to useful resources for anyone interested in web standards in Indonesia. Take it away Bruce! I was ...

By Henny Swan | February 20th, 2009

Shared Passion

Something magical happens when you put a group of people that have a shared passion in the same room together. We're not just talking "excitement" here, either. We're talking passion -- the kind that keeps the fire in the belly burning; the kind that brings people together from far away ...

By Derek Featherstone | February 15th, 2009

Opera Web Standards Curriculum translations available

I'm always on the look out for translations of good resources into multiple languages so it's great to see the Opera Web Standards Curriculum starting to be translated into Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Hungarian, Italian and Russian. The curriculum, which will work in parallel with the upcoming Web Standards Framework from WaSP, ...

By Henny Swan | February 3rd, 2009

WebAIM screenreader survey…the results are in

Hat-tip to ATF member Jared Smith:WebAIM recently conducted a survey of preferences of screen reader users. With over 1100 responses, the results of this survey provide much useful information about screen reader user demographics and preferences. Some of the results were quite surprising. This comprehensive survey of screen reader ...

By Patrick Lauke | January 31st, 2009

UK government browser guidelines: good sense prevails

You might remember that I published a post called UK government draft browser guidance is daft browser guidance last September, calling out a draft document outlining some UK government browser testing guidelines. These suggested that for government web sites, webmasters need not test in less popular browsers (those with ...

By Bruce Lawson | January 19th, 2009

CSS Working Group feeds back to WaSP

Almost exactly a year ago, I asked all interested web professionals to let the CSS Working Group know what they want from CSS. Fantasai, an invited expert in the working group has published her feedback on our requests with information on what the Working Group has done about them. It's unclear ...

By Bruce Lawson | January 16th, 2009

WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation

After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I'd like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards. I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation: WCAG 2.0 and ...

By Matt May | December 11th, 2008

Introduction to WAI ARIA – available in Spanish and French

Accessibility genius Gez Lemon recently published An Introduction to WAI ARIA on Dev.Opera. Designed to work together with HTML 5 the Accessible Rich Internet Application Suite, published by the Web Accessibility Initiative, aims to make Ajax accessible to disabled people using screen-readers and is key to safeguarding accessibility in today's ...

By Henny Swan | December 10th, 2008

“Just ask: Integrating accessibility throughout design” available in English, Japanese and Spanish

Fancy giving your site a hardcore usability test? Then why not involve people with disabilities in your testing. Not sure where to start? Then check out Just Ask: integrating accessibility throughout design. This free online book, written by Shawn Lawton Henry from W3C in her spare time, looks at all you ...

By Henny Swan | December 8th, 2008

BSI British Standards invites comments on new draft standard on accessible web content

BSI British Standards is inviting all interested parties, and in particular marketing professionals and disabled web users, to review and comment on the draft of a new standard on accessible web content. DPC BS 8878 Web accessibility – Building accessible experiences for disabled people – Code of Practice is ...

By Patrick Lauke | December 1st, 2008

Want to set up a Web Standards Café?

As a hat tip to Blue Beanie Day 2008 and in the spirit of helping spread the word of web standards, the International Liaison Group thought we'd celebrate by putting together a Web Standard Café Kit. Web Standards Cafés have been held all over the world bringing together people passionate about ...

By Henny Swan | November 28th, 2008

Web standards in China

En plus des versions anglaise et chinoise, l'article est désormais également disponible en français. Merci Armony In early October I was lucky enough to spend some time in China talking to web professionals and students alike about web standards and their current status. It was an interesting couple of weeks that ...

By Henny Swan | November 24th, 2008

Acid3 receptions and misconceptions and do we have a winner?

Acid3 progress and what it really means.

By Lars Gunther | October 2nd, 2008

UK government draft browser guidance is daft browser guidance

This blog post is superseded by UK government browser guidelines: good sense prevails. Last friday, the UK government's Central Office of Information (COI) published a public consultation on browser standards for public sector websites: This guidance has been developed to assist those delivering public sector websites to determine which web browsers to ...

By Bruce Lawson | September 8th, 2008

Call-to-action: Save the UT Accessibility Institute

The University of Texas is closing its Accessibility Institute today. Non-profit Knowbility has started a petition to save it. Though you may not have heard of the Accessibility Institute, you have been influenced by its work. Its late founder, Dr. John Slatin, was the former co-chair of the Web Content Accessibility ...

By James Craig | August 29th, 2008

What the Target settlement should mean to you

It's a question many of us in accessibility have been waiting for years to be answered. Does the Americans with Disabilities Act apply to the web? Sadly, accessibility's ultimate cliffhanger once again reaches an awkward denouement, leaving us deflated, and looking at yet another boring sequel. The National Federation of the Blind ...

By Matt May | August 28th, 2008

Announcing the WaSP Curriculum Framework

Since March 2008, the WaSP Education Task Force has begun working on the WaSP Curriculum Framework, a collection of tools aiming to identify skill sets and competencies that aspiring Web professionals need to acquire to prepare them for their chosen careers, as well as resources that will help both educators and students.

By Steph Troeth | July 31st, 2008

Curriculum Survey Results

The Web Standards Project Education Task Force release the results of the 2007 Curriculum Survey.

By Rob Dickerson | July 28th, 2008

Acid 2 Test Back to Normal

The Acid 2 test hosted here on the WaSP site was broken but is now fixed.

By Derek Featherstone | July 24th, 2008

Recent Buzz

Our Work Here is Done

By Aaron Gustafson | March 1st, 2013

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.

When The Web Standards Project (WaSP) formed in 1998, the web was the battleground in an ever-escalating war between two browser makers—Netscape and Microsoft—who were each taking turns “advancing” HTML to the point of collapse. You see, in an effort to one-up each other, the two browsers introduced new elements and new ways of manipulating web documents; this escalated to the point where their respective 4.0 versions were largely incompatible.

Realizing that this fragmentation would inevitably drive up the cost of building websites and ran the risk of denying users access to content and services they needed, Glenn Davis, George Olsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded WaSP and rallied an amazing group of web designers and developers to help them push back. The WaSP’s primary goal was getting browser makers to support the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

In 2001, with the browser wars largely over, WaSP began to shift its focus. While some members continued to work with browser vendors on improving their standards support, others began working closely with software makers like Macromedia to improve the quality of code being authored in tools such as Dreamweaver. And others began the hard slog of educating web designers and developers about the importance of using web standards, culminating in the creation of WaSP InterAct, a web curriculum framework which is now overseen by the W3C.

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality. While there is still work to be done, the sting of the WaSP is no longer necessary. And so it is time for us to close down The Web Standards Project.

Many (if not all) of us are continuing to work in the world of web standards, but our work is now largely outside the umbrella of WaSP. If you are interested in continuing to work on web standards-related projects along with us, we humbly suggest you follow these projects:

• A List Apart – The magazine “for people who make websites” is run by WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman and is a consistent source of forward-thinking articles and tutorials.
• HTML5 Doctor – A solid resource and discussion forum on all things HTML5, brought to you by Bruce Lawson and his team.
• W3C Community Groups – If you have a passion for a specific web technology, you can help make it better by participating in one (or more) community groups. In particular, you might be interested in one of these: Core Mobile Web Platform, Responsive Images, Web Education, and Web Media Text Tracks.
• WebPlatform.org – A fantastic web standards resource, providing up-to-date documentation, Q&As, tutorials & more. Chris Mills, Doug Schepers, and a number of other standards advocates are involved in this project.
• Web Standards Sherpa – An educational resource founded by WaSP which continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Casciano, Virginia DeBolt, Aaron Gustafson, and Emily Lewis.
• Web Standards + Small Business – An outreach project started by WaSP that educates small businesses about why they should care about web standards. This project is overseen by Aaron Gustafson.

The job’s not over, but instead of being the work of a small activist group, it’s a job for tens of thousands of developers who care about ensuring that the web remains a free, open, interoperable, and accessible competitor to native apps and closed eco-systems. It’s your job now, and we look forward to working with you, and wish you much success.

Nota bene: In the near future, we will be making a permanent, static archive of webstandards.org and some of our other resources like WaSP Interact to preserve them as a resource and to provide a record of our 15-year mission to improve the web.
Bruce Lawson and Steph Troeth contributed to this post.

Filed in WaSP Announcement | Comments (89)

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Call for action on Vendor Prefixes	Rachel Andrew
An End to Aging IE Installs	Aaron Gustafson
Beyond the Blue Beanie?	Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis
The Sherpas are Here	Aaron Gustafson