Web interoperability is producing web pages viewable with nearly every device and
web browser
A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
. There have been various projects to improve web interoperability, for example the
Web Standards Project
The Web Standards Project (WaSP) was a group of professional web developers dedicated to disseminating and encouraging the use of the web standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium, along with other groups and standards bodies, with ...
, Mozilla's Technology Evangelism and Web Standards Group, and the Web Essential Conference.
History
The term was first used in the Web Interoperability Pledge, which is a promise to adhere to current
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
recommendations as promoted by the
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...
(W3C). The WIP was not a W3C initiative but it was started by and has been run by
ZDNet AnchorDesk.
This issue was known as "cross browsing" in the
browser war
Browse, browser, or browsing may refer to:
Computing
*Browser service, a feature of Microsoft Windows to browse shared network resources
* Code browser, a program for navigating source code
* File browser or file manager, a program used to manage ...
between
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...
and
Netscape
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...
. Microsoft's Internet Explorer was the dominant browser after that, but modern web browsers such as
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curren ...
,
Opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
and
Safari
A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...
have become dominant, and support additional web standards beyond what Internet Explorer supports.
Because of Internet Explorer's
backwards compatibility
In telecommunications and computing, backward compatibility (or backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, software, real-world product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with Input ...
, some web pages have continued to use non-standard HTML tags, DOM handling scripts, and platform-specific technologies such as
ActiveX
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide W ...
, which could potentially be harmful for
Web accessibility
Web accessibility, or eAccessibility,European CommissionCommunication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: eAccessibility, EC(2005)1095 pu ...
and
device independence
Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform soft ...
.
Elements
* Structural and semantic markup with
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
*
CSS-based layout with layout elements that resize based on screen size
See also
*
Computer accessibility
Computer accessibility refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability type or severity of impairment. The term ''accessibility'' is most often used in reference to specialized hardware or software, or a co ...
*
Multimodal interaction
Multimodal interaction provides the user with multiple modes of interacting with a system. A multimodal interface provides several distinct tools for input and output of data.
Multimodal human-computer interaction involves natural communicati ...
*
Forward compatibility
Forward compatibility or upward compatibility is a design characteristic that allows a system to accept input intended for a later version of itself. The concept can be applied to entire systems, electrical interfaces, telecommunication signal ...
References
{{reflist
Web design
Interoperability