UCSF School of Pharmacy

We recommend coding to web standards to ensure accessibility, stability, maintainability, and cost-effectiveness of our web sites.  Introduction: What are web standards and why should I use them? and Why don't you code for Netscape? More info: Google: Web Standards

We recommend the most recent major version recommendation of web markup language by the World Wide Web Consortium to take advantage of new markup language features as user agents support them.  Introduction: Better Living Through XHTML and XHTML: Benefits. More info: Google: Why XHTML?

We recommend the most recent major version recommendation of Cascading Style Sheets by the World Wide Web Consortium to take advantage of new presentational features as user agents support them.  Introduction: CSS Quick Tutorial. More info: Google: Why CSS?

We recommend valid code to ensure that our web pages behave as expected as user agent vendors move toward supporting accepted industry-wide standards.  More info: Google: Why validate?

We recommend a minimum of Level A compliance of the most recent major version recommendation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines by the World Wide Web Consortium to ensure access of information on the web to people with disabilities and to people using a wide variety of user agents (device independence).  Introduction: Access: Everybody Wins, Auxiliary Benefits of Accessible Web Design, and Authoring Challenges for Device Independence. More info: About Accessibility, Google: Web Accessibility, and Google: web device independence.

We recommend that attention is given every work day to resolving broken links to minimize loss of productivity. This includes understanding not only how to change web markup accordingly, but also the web server implementation and handling of redirects.  More info: Link Checking.

We recommend that web developers have knowledge of web security issues such as SQL injection and malicious content mitigation to mitigate the possibilities of lost or stolen data, clients or servers crashing, and other security issues.  Introduction: The World Wide Web Security FAQ. More info: Google: Web Security and Searchers may Google your patient records.

We recommend that web developers effectively communicate anticipated changes that may affect other sites. When changes are made without effective communication, problems occur (such as broken links), and productivity is lost.

We recommend that web developers follow our web style guide to ensure stability, maintainability, cost-effectiveness, and coherent identity and branding of our sites. Some deviations from the style guide may be possible, but they must be approved by the Associate Dean of Planning and Communications.