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1. Benefits

Improved and sustainable accessibility for people and search engines

The Web Guidelines pivot around the user of a website. Correct application of the Web Guidelines results in websites that offer improved and sustainable accessibility for all users, implementations and browsers. This bears a direct relationship to the performance of a website. A site that is geared to various types of browsers will perform better since it becomes accessible to more people.

Likewise, search engines can find the site more easily. Search engines look a the structures content of web pages. The content of a site that complies with the Web Guidelines is structured according to importance. Search engines can index this structured content more effectively, resulting in positive search results for users. The use of readable web addresses, as described in the quality model Web Guidelines, yields better search results as well. Furthermore, implementing the Web Guidelines advances the ‘sustainability’ of websites. On sites complying with the Web Guidelines information continues to be easier to find and search through for a longer period. Moreover, this information is easier to archive. The latter becomes more important as important information is increasingly offered online.

Faster website

Websites that have been developed in compliance with the Web Guidelines do not merely offer improved (and sustainable) accessibility, they are faster as well. They require up to 80 percent less code than a conventional website. This reduces data traffic and renders websites considerably faster.

Future-ready (including user agents)

Sites that are built according to the Web Guidelines will work with all 'standards-compliant' browsers and media applications, while users of older browsers and applications. New browsers or browser versions do not adversely affect the accessibility of these sites.

Websites that comply with the Web Guidelines and have been properly structured can be accessed by user agents like mobile phones and handheld computers without further adjustments. Since the content is independent of the presentation, seperate style definitions can be created for these devices. Therefore, a completely new version of the site is no longer required.

Higher Return on Investment

A website that complies with the Web Guidelines earns organisations and companies a higher return on investment, both financially and strategically:

Websites complying with the Web Guidelines reduce the total cost of ownership. With respect to exploitation costs, investing in a Web Guidelines-compliant website will prove cost-neutral. By separating structure/content from presenatation/layout each can be adapted and maintained independent from the other. Compared to table-based websites, this can result in a cost reduction up to 50 percent. Likewise, you can save on bandwidth costs.

In terms of corporate social responsibility, a sustainable and accessible website can enhance the image of a company or institution. Thus a well-developed website can rise above being a nuisance and grow into a strategic intstrument.

Improved procurement

The Web Guidelines constitute an unequivocal tender and control guideline. Thus, the quality model Web Guidelines is an effective procurement tool. By referring to the quality model in the formal agreements with a web builder the principal gains leverage. The testability of the quality model has received a fair amount of attention. Thanks to tests, it is possible to check during and after the construction of the website whether the agreements have been honoured.

Managerial risk

For (government) institutions the managerial risk must be factored in. The Web Guidelines prove to be a workable instrument to aim for a qualitative end result while realising a web project.

The Web Guidelines contain the following elements:

• an extensive specification that has the official status of a ‘government standard’ (in the Netherlands);
• an instrument for exerting automatic controls;
• a normative document for manual research;
• a manual to use of the Web Guidelines;
• a score survey of the extent to which Dutch governments websites comply with the Web Guidelines;