First Jason Kottke argued that semantics and standards aren't the same, to which the design community responded, for the most part, by collectively wondering if anyone had been arguing that they were.
Now D. Keith Robinson's More Important Than Web Standards argues that there are aspects of Web design negligibly affected by the pursuit of standards:
I would also assert that whether or not a site is tableless or validates, in general, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the success of a Web site.
Here is a list of some things that I feel are more important than Web standards:
- Clear, concise and measurable goals
- A solid information architecture
- Clean, functional and user-centered design
- Well thought-out, audience appropriate content
- Interaction with your users/readers
And here we are again, scratching our heads and wondering who it was that argued in the first place that the above goals are less important than Web standards. Jeffrey Zeldman writes:
Using markup and style sheets correctly doesn't make your site compelling, attractive, well-written, or easy to navigate, and nobody claims it does. Building with standards is simply a baseline. Who claims it is more than that?
It's possible to give attention to every item on Keith's list and follow Web standards. And why wouldn't you? Standards make our lives easier, not harder. That's why some of us in the community are passionate, maybe overzealous, about their use. Standards don't do it all, but they're a great place to start.