Semantic HTML Isn’t Dead

Semantic HTML is still crucial for accessibility and SEO.

Semantic HTML keeps being declared old-fashioned, usually by people rebuilding a button with several divs and a click handler. The right elements give browsers, assistive technology and developers useful meaning for free, which remains a difficult price to beat.

HTML carries meaning before the visual layer arrives. That meaning helps browsers, assistive technology, search engines and the developer trying to understand the page after the original CSS has moved on.

There is a practical tension underneath this topic: we want enough structure to move confidently, but not so much that the structure becomes the work.

Front-end work has a habit of looking simple from a distance. The browser then introduces real content, small screens, old devices, keyboard navigation and somebody using the product in a way nobody drew in the design file.

That is not a dramatic conclusion, but useful work is often built from undramatic conclusions applied consistently.