An Event Apart: Standards in the Enterprise

Not web standards - coding, naming, design, interaction patterns, usability guidelines, accessibility requirements.

Standards are important for consistency and uniformity.

• standarizes how people work
  
• faster production cycles
  
• keep pace with emerging trends
  
• protects user experience.

Typical problems w/standards

• management isn't demonstrating commitment
  
• lack of training/communication
  
• documentation lags behind project work
  
• standards aren't maintained.

Successful standards:

• timely updates
  
• communicating about them
  
• reinforcement
  
• assign someone to be in charge

Creation

• start with fundamentals
  
• investigate the live site and work in progress
  
• think ahead
  
• review regularly
  
• monitor projects for efforts that require standardization

What makes a good standard?

• justification
  
• examples
  
• cross-discipline buy-in

Training

• making training mandatory
  
• offer it regularly 
  
• communicate regularly
  
• make information available in a convenient way 

Get creative:

• set up an intranet and allow comments
  
• hide easter eggs in the standards and run contests to find them
  
• be visible

Project Approval and Review

• make adherence to standards part of the project requirements
  
• formal reviews to look for standards-related issues
  
• new work gets fed back into the standards creation phase.

Tips:
1) Get organized. Find like-minded people.
2) Execute.
3) Diplomacy. Speak the same language as higher-ups.
4) Help. Be a support system.