W3C

 toc =What is the W3C?=

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) founded by Tim Berners Lee, develops interoperable technologies to lead the web to it's full potential. One of the things important to Berners-Lee when he came up with the WWW was that the Internet be available as a communication tool for everyone. This goal of Berners-Lee was passed on to W3C. W3C strives to make the WWW reachable by all people no matter what language they speak, culture they are from, technology that is available to them, area of the world they are from, accessibility issue they may have (Fuzellier). The W3C is made up of organizations, payed staff, aswell as the general pulic, who are all involved in the development of Web standards (Fuzellier). This is done offline, but a large majority of it is done online aswell. The W3.org is essentially a forum, available to everyone, for information, commerce, communication and collective understanding.

=Important W3C Achievements=

 [|Back to top]
 * ===The Mobile Web Initiative (MWI)- May 2005===Despite technological advancements in mobile devices, there is still a long way to go. The Mobile Web Initiative is the most recent project W3C has come up with to facilitate Internet use on mobile devices. W3C strives to make the Internet accessible from a variety of different technologies; this is their 'web on everything' outlook. But, when it comes to accessing the internet, mobile devices suffer from interoperability. W3C wants browsing the Internet on a mobile device to be as easy as bowsing the Web from a computer desktop. Ways they are working to improve ease of Internet use on portable devices are by: 1. developing 'best practices'; 2. coming up with a 'trustmark' for websites that are cellphone compatible (displaying 'MobileOK'); 3. looking into mobile devices' technological features, and making them adaptable to Internet content; 4. marketing and implementing outreach programs (Fuzellier).
 * ===Voice XML 2.0**- March 2004**===The idea behind the development of Voice XML 2.0 was to create something for Internet users with accessibility needs. This program brought Web features to people with needs via interactive voice response systems (Fuzellier).
 * ===Extendible Markup Language (XML)- February 1998===is a simple, very flexible text format. XML is known today as the lingua franca (primary language) of the web and is standard in the creation of many tools accross the internet (Fuzellier).
 * ===Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)- **February 1997**===WAI along with other world organizations has helped put in place guidelines on web design and authoring tools, which make browsing the Internet accessible for all users. Making the Internet available to everyone was done by focusing on four areas: technology, education and awareness, tools and research (Fuzellier).
 * ===Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)- **December 1996**===Level 1 of the CSS were published. These allowed for style to exist in Web documents. Examples of what could now be considered in the creation of Web pages are colors, fonts, spacing, etc. This made aesthetics relevant in the world of the Internet, and opened the door for what is now known as Web design (Fuzellier).
 * ===Portable Network Graphics (PNG)**- October 1996**===After the WWW's creation, people were begining to realize graphic possibilities. W3C developed PNGs to serve as a cross-platform alternative, to facilitate the use of graphic formats, which were popular at the time (Fuzellier).

=W3.org=

A lot of W3C's organizational work is done on their website, [|W3.org]. To follow are some of the website's components that stand out.

Accessibility
This website, though not too aesthetically pleasing, keeps web accessibility in mind. A few ways in which the site does this is by choosing text that contrasts well with the background, incorporating tables and images which include supplementary text, aswell as using easily-to-read scannable text (i.e. headers, subtitles, and bolded font)

'Size'
The [|www.w3.org] domain has over one million pages attached to it. This does not include another million pages of mailing list archives (Fuzellier).

Navigation
Housing this many pages, means that finding information that you are looking for may be challenging. One way to speed things up is to use the Google search bar that is located at the top of the home page. With this toolbar, you are given the option of either searching in the W3.org domain alone, or over the entire WWW. Other search tools availale are the site index and keywords pages. Something that may also be useful is the glossary page. The W3C logo on the top right hand corner of each page leads navigators to the main homepage. W3.org is aware that finding what you are looking for may be an issue, and for this reason has created an Introduction to Website page, W3C Help page and FAQ page. In addition, most pages are signed with an email address for feedback, which helps in leting that page creator know about any technical or navigation errors.

Mailing Lists
The mailing list archives also have their own search engine, (which also has a search engine help manual). About half of W3.org's pages are mailing list archives. It goes without saying that mailing lists are one of the website's main attractions. These mailing lists are what general Internet users and technology innovators use to ask questions, share knowledge, and gain support.

[|Back to top]

=Articles=


 * Muncaster, Phil. "[|Poor Accessibility Has A Price]." IT Week. (2006). 24 Feb 2006. .
 * Farrell, Nick. "[|Arrested Development]." (2006). 24 Feb 2006. .
 * Colley, Andrew. "[|Stes for more eyes]". Australian IT. (2006). 24 Feb 2006. <[|http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,17957832%5E15394%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html]>.

[|Back to top]

=Related Links=


 * [|WAI Guidelines]
 * Tim Berners-Lee
 * WWW

[|Back to top]

=External Sites=


 * [|W3.org]
 * [|Web Accessibility Initiative]
 * [|Mobile Web Initiative]
 * [|Cascading Style Sheets]
 * [|Portable Network Graphics]
 * [|Extensible Markup Language]

[|Back to top]

=Works Cited=

Fuzellier, Matthieu. __World Wide Web Consortium.__ 23 Feb. 2006. W3C (MIT, ERCIM, Keio). 24 Feb. 2006 <[|http://www.w3.org/]>. n.pag.

Back to top