Designing With Web Standards

Chapter Six. XHTML: Restructuring the Web

We might have titled this chapter, “XHTML: Simple Rules, Easy Guidelines.” For one thing, the rules and guidelines discussed in this chapter are simple and easy. For another, “simple” and “easy” are to web design books what “new!” and “free!” are to supermarket packaging—namely, hackneyed but effective attention-getting devices that stimulate interest and encourage trial.

And we certainly want to stimulate interest in and encourage trial of this chapter. Why? Because after you've grasped the simple, easy ideas in this chapter, you'll rethink the way web pages work—and begin changing the way you build web pages. And we don't mean you'll write this year's tags instead of last year's tags. We mean you'll genuinely ...