When choosing a web design company for your next redesign or project, there are many factors to consider. One important factor which shouldn’t be overlooked is the web design company’s conformance to W3C recommendations.

We decided to do a follow-up to a 2005 study conducted by our friends over at Happy Cog Philadelphia concerning the HTML and CSS validity of Philadelphia area web design companies’ homepages. That study found a majority of these Philadelphia web firms were not following the W3C’s HTML and CSS recommendations.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded over a decade ago by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who originally invented the World Wide Web. The W3C’s goal is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web. These guidelines or “web standards” are important for a multitude of reasons, including faster page loads, easier site maintenance and accessibility for disabled users. (For more information on why you should be using these web standards, visit webstandards.org)

Of the 42 companies we’ve compared, only 3 had both clean HTML and clean CSS. Those companies are WebLinc, Happy Cog, and Advance Web Design.

Company	Clean HTML?	Clean CSS?
WebLinc	Yep	Yep
Electronic Ink	Nope*	Nope*
TMX Communications	Nope	Yep
Seer Interactive	Nope	Nope
Singularity Design	Nope	Nope
Happy Cog	Yep	Yep
Ripple Effects Interactive	Nope	Yep
Javelin Design	Nope	Yep
Stone Rose Design	Nope	Yep
Advance Web Design	Yep	Yep
Backe Interactive	Nope	Yep
Jajopa	Nope	Nope
Morningstar Multimedia	Yep	Nope
Delphic Sage	Nope	Yep
Gyro Worldwide	Nope	Yep
AvenueA Razorfish	Nope	Nope
Fingerprint Interactive	Nope	Yep
IMC2	Nope	Nope
Trellist	Nope	Yep
U1.net	Nope	Nope
160over90	Nope	Nope
Archer Group	Nope	Nope
DMI Partners	Nope	Nope
Digitas Health	Nope	Yep
Zero One Zero	Nope	Nope
Zigzag	Nope	Yep
Yikes Inc	Nope	Nope
I-Site	Nope	Yep
Refinery	Nope	Nope
Biondo Communications	Yep	Nope
Haley Pro	Nope	Yep
Netreach	Nope	Nope
D&D Interactive	Nope	Nope
Sage Frog	Nope	Nope
Wild Bit	Yep	Nope
Kurani	Nope	Nope
Voveo	Nope	Nope
Art270	Nope	Nope
Empathy Lab	Nope	Nope
Whittman Hart	Nope	Yep
Osiris Group	Nope	Yep
All Web Cafe	Nope	Nope

When you hire a contractor to implement that beautiful new design for your home’s remodeling, you’d expect the design to be constructed in a manner compliant with modern building code practices and standards, right? Why wouldn’t you expect the same from your web design and development company? If your web vendor does not include web standards in your specifications documentation and final site output, it may be time to ask questions.

This study in no way implies the mentioned companies are not capable of creating beautiful designs for their clients, nor themselves. Rather it is the implementation of the design that comes into question here.

Please refer to the W3C validation tool for the most up-to-date validation information. If your company is listed above and you’d like to update your site’s status here, my email is jferry [at] weblinc.com.

*Update: 4/27/07 Electronic Ink’s homepage now validates.