How are Web Standards and Best Practices Determined?

Web standards for the future from W3C on Vimeo.

Best practices and standards for web development are decided through a long process of discussion and debate among the web development community. These discussions may begin in a few different ways. Sometimes it is clear to the community that there is something that needs to be set forth in order to allow future technology growth. In this case, a larger organization is likely to take on developing a standard and stewarding their solution through the many phases of discussion and approval required to finalize official standards.

The now-defunct W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group is a good example of the standards-building process. In that case, the group existed for five years, set forth a bunch of recommendations that were then discussed, and finally integrated their work as a fully-ratified W3C Web Standard (Mobile Web Standards).

In other cases, best practices may arise from many other sources. They may grow organically because everyone in the community adopts the same solution to a problem, or they may be suggested by individuals and corporations who have a goal of extending the capabilities of the technology they use in their trade. These best practices are published all over, and googling around for "best practice" and whatever area of web technology you are interested in will usually reveal several discussions. 

Development technologies, such as frameworks of all types, game engines, and server protocols all have best practices and standards defined. It is often a very good idea to look for resources to guide you as you begin to explore any given technology. Even if you ultimately decide to diverge from the standards, you will need to be able to support user expectations that are based on the widespread existence of interfaces and tools that do adhere to best practices and standards.

Every organization who defines standards has its own process. In the case of the W3C, an organization open to all and tasked with the common good, the process is fairly transparent. The W3C Process document describes how the organization works at a high level (although with lots of detail). Other organizations who make a technology and publish best practices guidelines or standards may do so with much less transparency. Often, standards are defined as part of the technology requirements, making them inescapable if you are using that technology. (For example, your web browser will not work with anyone else's websites if it cannot interpret HTML according to the W3C standards.)