Minimum Standards Compliance Requirements for UC Davis Web Sites and Applications

Web applications developed or purchased for deployment for potential use throughout UC Davis must work across a variety of computing platforms. This document establishes the minimum browser related requirements for such applications. These standards are derived from the Information Technology Architecture Group's Web Standards and Browser Recommendations for UC Content Providers, which applies to inter-campus applications.

Details of the recommendations mentioned below are provided in Web Standards and Browser Recommendations for UC Davis Web Sites and Applications.

Web Standards Compliance

A compliant UC Davis web site must meet the following requirements:

HTML Validation

A compliant site must validate to one of the following HTML specifications:

HTML 4.01
XHTML 1.0
XHTML 1.1

A site may optionally use HTML 5. However, HTML 5 is still in flux. Care must be taken to ensure the site works on UC Davis recommended web browsers.

A HTML validator is available at http://validator.w3.org/.

CSS and Javascript Support

When using CSS and Javascript, a compliant site must adhere to the CSS and Javascript recommendations described in Browser Related Recommendations for Developing and Procuring Web Services at UC Davis.

A compliant application must not make use of proprietary (browser-specific) extensions to these standards unless it provides equivalent functionality when the site is accessed in other browsers.

Browser Plugins

It is highly desirable that a compliant web application require no browser plugins. For more information, see Browser Related Recommendations for Developing and Procuring Web Services at UC Davis.

Browsers and Operating Systems

A compliant UC-wide web application must minimally support the recommended versions of Firefox. We strongly advise that the application also tests against recommended versions of Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer in Browser Support Matrix for UC Davis Web Content Providers.