Web Standards in China

At the beginning of October, I had the privilege of spending time in China, sharing web standards with web-field experts, students, and the status quo. It was an interesting couple of weeks, and it was an eye-opener for me. Most impressive, web standards are still rare in China and are often isolated, unable to implement and explain why standards and standards are needed. So here I want to write about what I know, the challenges I face, and the ways I hope to be effective.

If you have any comments and suggestions, please leave a message! If you have links to related content, also welcome to provide, I will update the resource list at the end of the article.

Market forces

In China, the main driving force behind web standards is almost the opposite of European countries, Australia and the United States. There is no law that requires your site to be accessible (accessibility), and the market as a whole has little to contribute. The promotion of the market is very interesting. Web standards are an important foundation for all the business projects I've been through, even in legally binding countries. Why is it interesting because the owners of the site know that the law requires the site to meet accessibility requirements, but unless they see tangible benefits, they will only spend the smallest amount of money to meet the legal requirements.

In China, web standards are commercially vulnerable for a number of reasons. For example, IE6 still occupies 95% of the market share of browsers. Most E-commerce sites that rely on ActiveX controls to run can make it necessary to use IE6. This leads to a tendency to meet IE6 when making Web pages, with little attention to other browsers. With the rise in opera, Safari, Firefox and Google Chrome, this situation is gradually improving. In fact, the advent of Google Chrome has made web design sessions more focused on browser compatibility. Developers have also talked about the fact that although they often use browsers outside IE to develop and test websites, they still need to use IE from time to time, just because many sites rely on it.

Low demand for site compatibility has led to little incentive for developers and companies. But that should improve, especially as more and more multinationals outsource or put development work in China. It is hoped that this gradual infiltration will take effect, and that foreign companies in China should be able to help improve knowledge. I asked a Microsoft developer how to get started with web standards, he said, because the company asked some experts to train web standard development knowledge. This is quite good, and is a key channel to promote the development of web standards. Opera has always been a supporter of Web standards (stating that I work for opera but not here to promote it) and has been promoting web standards, and the development team is also a very active participant in meetings and conferences in China as well as in the core development segment.

Legal Support

Since there is no specific law requiring accessibility, it is interesting to see how the Olympics will affect this. Because of the competition, public areas, streets and buildings already have good adaptability and accessibility measures, it also makes people more aware of this. At least this is a start, and China has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities in July 2008. This is the first international legal convention to safeguard and promote the rights of people with disabilities in history. China's ratification of the Convention means that people with disabilities have a legal basis for access to information, rehabilitation, employment and education. As stated in article Nineth of the Convention:

"The State Party shall take appropriate measures ... (a) Promote access by persons with disabilities to new information and communication technologies and systems, including the Internet. ”

There is still a long way to go, but at least China has joined in.

Support at the grassroots level

What excites me most is the passion and sense of responsibility that I have seen from many experts in the Web field. There are some influential blogs in China that are promoting web standards. such as Junchen, Realazy. When communicating with Realazy, he mentions the first time in 2005 years that he started blogging about standards, with nearly 1000 clicks a day. This may mean that people are eager to learn more about the knowledge, even if they are not really searching for it, but they visit his website and see the introduction of standards.

Almost all of the developers I talked to said they were basically self-taught. In many countries, web development and standards do not all exist in university curricula, so designers and developers must learn by themselves. In China, the biggest learning disability is the lack of resources. For most people, some expensive e-books also exacerbate learning disabilities.

My most exciting thing is to participate in the first web standards Café in China. Hosted in Beijing, sponsored by opera, the theme is Web standards and Web 2.0, and basically the discussion focuses on how we support web standards in China. I think this is the right way to combine the developers and the BarCamp such gatherings.

Support Web standards, in China

There are things we can start to do to promote the development of web standards and web accessibility design in China. It may look scary, but with a little bit of a start, web standards are unlikely to become more prevalent. As a Chinese ancient saying: "The paper on the end feel shallow, never know this matter to preach." Not long ago we were also trying to do some basic work for web standards in Europe, Australia and the United States, and it was worth our time to learn. Now I think the following approaches are beneficial to the development of web standards in China:

Translation resources-the first task is to have Chinese, free resources for everyone to use, study. Many individuals have been involved in the translation (see the final resource section), but I can't help but think that the big companies should also contribute their strength. See the translation Introduction and guide for the resources of the consortium.

The responsibility of multinationals-large international companies to promote and support web standards internationally, and should do what they can to help China's web standards develop. For example, through in-house training, sponsorship or the provision of courses or cultural web Standard resources. Of course, it is not limited to China.

Grassroots Support-developers know more about the opportunities and challenges they face than anyone else. Blogs, forums, BarCamp parties, WEB Standards café and other forms are more effective ways. This may take different forms depending on Chinese culture, but in essence it must be communication and sharing.

If you're a blogger, developer, or corporate preacher, be sure to share your experience. As I said above, if you have any comments and suggestions, please leave a message. If you have any related links that you would like to share, I will also update the resource list at the end of the extension.