Not web standards - coding, naming, design, interaction patterns, usability guidelines, accessibility requirements.

Standards are important for consistency and uniformity.

  • standarizes how people work
  • faster production cycles
  • keep pace with emerging trends
  • protects user experience.

Typical problems w/standards

  • management isn’t demonstrating commitment
  • lack of training/communication
  • documentation lags behind project work
  • standards aren’t maintained.

Successful standards:

  • timely updates
  • communicating about them
  • reinforcement
  • assign someone to be in charge

Creation

  • start with fundamentals
  • investigate the live site and work in progress
  • think ahead
  • review regularly
  • monitor projects for efforts that require standardization

What makes a good standard?

  • justification
  • examples
  • cross-discipline buy-in

Training

  • making training mandatory
  • offer it regularly 
  • communicate regularly
  • make information available in a convenient way 

Get creative:

  • set up an intranet and allow comments
  • hide easter eggs in the standards and run contests to find them
  • be visible

Project Approval and Review

  • make adherence to standards part of the project requirements
  • formal reviews to look for standards-related issues
  • new work gets fed back into the standards creation phase.

Tips:
1) Get organized. Find like-minded people.
2) Execute.
3) Diplomacy. Speak the same language as higher-ups.
4) Help. Be a support system.