Buzz Archives: Mobile
WCAG 2 and mobileOK Basic Tests specs are proposed recommendations
WCAG 2 and the mobileOK Basic Tests specifications have been moved to "proposed recommendation status" by the W3C, which means that the technical material is complete and it has been implemented in real sites. WCAG 2 Shawn Henry writes of WCAG 2, Over the last few months, the Web Content ...
By Bruce Lawson | November 4th, 2008
- W3C Offers Online Training Course: Mobile Best Practices
-
The W3C Mobile Web Initiative is offering the online training course: An Introduction to W3C’s Mobile Web Best Practices from May 26 – June 20, 2008. The course is free, registration is open, but limited.
By Holly Marie Koltz | May 4th, 2008
- This is your mobile device on Acid
-
The W3C's Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group have just announced a new suite of tests for mobile devices. In the spirit of the Acid tests, the test results are returned in an easily grokable visual manner—the green squares are desirable, the red squares mean a feature isn't yet supported. The ...
By Jeremy Keith | April 16th, 2008
- Mobile Safari without the iPhone
-
Apple has brought Mobile Safari to the iPod.
By Aaron Gustafson | September 10th, 2007
- The good, the bad, and the ugly – iPhone edition
-
The iPhone has had a tremendous impact on the web, eliciting impassioned testimony from supporters and detractors alike. What does it mean for the web standards? What about the rest of the mobile web? And (how) should we design for it?
By Aaron Gustafson | August 22nd, 2007
- Got Browser Woes? Think Again.
-
If you've been losing hair due to browser incompatibilities on the desktop, blame your remaining gray hairs on IE 6.0, Safari or Opera bugs and implementation problems, and have felt the calcium leeching from your tired bones while trying to make standards-based sites compatible in older browsers, you may wish ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | September 24th, 2005
- Handheld Styling
-
Jim Wilkinson authored a CSS Wiki page of useful information for those interested in styling content for the small screen, found at: Handheld Stylesheets - css discuss. If you are developing or styling content for handheld or mobile devices this page looks like it would be a very useful bookmark. Jim ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | March 10th, 2005
- Design in Hand
-
A List Apart has a nifty piece on web design for handhelds. The article was written by Opera's Jorunn D. Newth and W3C Working Group invited expert Elika Etemad. Tip o' the chapeau to Jeffrey Zeldman.
By Chris Kaminski | September 5th, 2004
- New co-operation agreement between W3C and OMA
-
A few days ago, the W3C and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) announced a Memorandum of Understanding that will allow them to collaborate on mobile Web specifications. This formal working relationship enables the two organizations to collaboratively engage in exchange of technical information and contributions. The result will benefit developers, product ...
By Steph Troeth | August 3rd, 2004
- The word for today is “Omtp”
-
Looks like another industry is sick and tired of a non-standard mess. The OMTP group aims to define those platform requirements necessary for mobile devices to deliver openly available standardised application interfaces that will provide customers with a more consistent and improved user experience across different devices, whilst also enabling ...
By Matthias Gutfeldt | June 23rd, 2004
- Mobile Test Cases
-
Patrick Griffiths is interested in the truth about current mobile support of HTML and CSS. A long-standing tenet of CSS design is that a clean separation of structure and presentation ensures proper degradability; and indeed, comparing a heavily table-laden page against a CSS-driven site on many mobiles proves the latter ...
By Dave Shea | June 14th, 2004
- A Guide to Small-Screen Web-Dev
-
Read it, read it again. Save it. Print it. Highlight key points. (there are many) The End-All Guide to Small-Screen Web-Dev by Heidi Pollock (webmonkey, 5 Mar 2004)It takes one gigantabig tutorial to teach you how to build sites for all those itty, bitty devices.One of the better pieces (I have encountered) that ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | March 12th, 2004
- Mobile Graphics Contest, W3C
-
A Mobile Graphics with Standards contest is currently running at the World Wide Web Consortium. Announced September 30th, 2003 by the SVG working group at the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C) the SVG Mobile Competition is underway. There is still time to submit entries, though the deadline is November 3, 2003. The challenge: ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | October 14th, 2003
- Standards On The Move
-
Microsoft and Vodafone are getting their heads together to frame and promote mobile web service standards based around XML. The companies are looking for industry engagement for their plans for greater PC to mobile web convergence. Bill Gates was hauled out for this announcement at the ITU Telecoms World 2003 ...
By Ian Lloyd | October 14th, 2003
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
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)
More Buzz articles
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| 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 |