Having spent an awful long time getting frustrated about how I should be building web applications and sites, I've decided to go back to the drawing board - or more appropriately school - and get a better understanding of how pages are put together.

One aspect of being a Web Developer is to provide a structure for designs to be incorporated in while allowing the scripts to function correctly. This is often a very delicate balance, with the designer wishing the site to look a particular way, but it can mean scripts written by developers do not function with these designs. On the other hand, a very structured application can make it difficult for designers to create visuals to match that either meet the client's requirements or are creative enough. A lack of understanding in terms of how pages can be built, taking into consideration web standards, accessibility and performance, could also making a designer's options tougher.

Which is why I'm revisiting how HTML documents should be structured.

A Web Developer should know how to build HTML pages, I hear you say. True, but there are many considerations and factors that can affect how they are structured:

• Web standards, such as HTML, XML and CSS guidelines outlined by W3C
• Accessibility guidelines to make it easier for those with disabilities to use the website
• Dynamic content generated from server-side scripts that are dependent on client-side programming, such as javascript. As dynamic content can be unknown from page to page, either because it is driven by each user or administered manually, it can be hard to be sure that the client-side programming will operate correctly in every situation based on these decisions.

What makes it more difficult is that these factors are often interconnected. For example, having different client-side scripts created from dynamic content may not be meet valid web standards. By looking at the HTML structure, I hope it'll help me build applications that'll satisfy not only my own beliefs but also work in its development.