Do W3 certifications carry any weight in the Web Development?

Or is it a waste of time effort and money?

Do W3 certifications carry any weight in the Web Development?
The only thing of real significance in web design is whether your markup works to produce a legible page that behaves consistently in 99%+ of browsers. The rest is twaddle. This is measured by the standards compliance (w3c validation) of your mark up.





I have no qualifications in web design or for that matter in any IT related subject and yet more "qualified" people than me are yet to understand and impliment css dropdown menus that are interoperable, standards compliant and don't mess up page accessibility. I was the first to make CSS menus to this standard of operation and perhaps a certification might have taught me that I can't.





If what you do works, you will always have the choice of working against whoever you cannot work for! This is the kind of independence you cannot possibly hope to get out of a certification. Also, most serious developers are measured by the quality of their work. If people like what you've done, they'll come to you - and this is something else a certification cannot be used to determine.





If you are going to spend money on a certification, get something in an industry where you can't just go in and start up yourself without investing millions of dollars - where the certification is the only point of entry.





Good luck...
Reply:I don't think so...


- Your website works on PCs and on MACs.


- Your website works and looks the same on IE, Firefox, Opera and Netscape. (that is 98.5% of browsers), in any resolution.


- Your website loads in 2-3 seconds for the home page.


- Your website is designed in Web 2.0 style and provides interactivity and easy navigation.


- Your website has a contents that interests your visitors.


- It is pleasant to look at and has been designed with your VISITOR interests in mind, NOT yours.


- Finally, your website WORKS (no crashes, no "document.element [so_so] is null or not an object", forms are easy to fill, user does not need a manual to use it etc...)





- Your website fails any certification.


Who cares?