Tags: markup

Revisiting the abbr element

Ire takes a deep dive into implementing an accessible tool tip.

Make Your ARIA Labels Sing on Key — Knowbility

A good look at the (over)use of the aria-label attribute that confirms the first rule of ARIA.

Building a Progressively-Enhanced Site | Jim Nielsen’s Blog

This is an excellent case study!

The technical details are there if you want them, but far more important is consideration that went into every interaction. Every technical decision has a well thought out justification.

HTML+ Discussion Document: Images

Back in 1993, David Raggett wrote up all the proposed extensions to HTML that were being discussed on the www-talk mailing list. It was called HTML+, which would’ve been a great way of describing HTML5.

Twenty five years later, I wish that the proposed IMAGE element had come to pass. Unlike the IMG element, it would’ve had a closing tag, allowing for fallback content between the tags:

The IMAGE element behaves in the same way as IMG but allows you to include descriptive text, which can be shown on text-only displays.

Yeah, I know we have the alt attribute, but that’s always felt like an inelegant bolt-on to me.

The power of progressive enhancement

Andy’s slides:

We dive into why progressive enhancement is important and how we can leverage the power of Vanilla JavaScript, Web Components and modern CSS to deliver a hack-free, lightweight and progressive experience for our users.

as days pass by — Why isn’t it their job

The secret is: if you use semantic HTML, then they do the work, not you. Their browser does the work, not you. If your pages use semantic HTML, you’re not going to get bug reports saying that your web app doesn’t work in a screenreader, or your buttons don’t work without mouse clicks, or your site doesn’t show anything on a Yoyodyne SuperPhone 3 running FailBrowser, because it will and they will and it will. And using semantic HTML elements is no more effort; it’s just as easy to use main as it is to use div id="main". Easier, even.

Using aria-live

A terrific explanation of the aria-live attribute from Ire. If you’re doing anything with Ajax, this is vital knowledge.

Reluctant Gatekeeping: The Problem With Full Stack | HeydonWorks

The value you want form a CSS expert is their CSS, not their JavaScript, so it’s absurd to make JavaScript a requirement.

Absolutely spot on! And it cuts both ways:

Put CSS in JS and anyone who wishes to write CSS now has to know JavaScript. Not just JavaScript, but —most likely—the specific ‘flavor’ of JavaScript called React. That’s gatekeeping, first of all, but the worst part is the JavaScript aficionado didn’t want CSS on their plate in the first place.

Introducing the Button element - HankChizlJaw

It’ll never catch on.

HTML elements, unite! The Voltron-like powers of combining elements. | CSS-Tricks

This great post by Mandy ticks all my boxes! It’s a look at the combinatorial possibilities of some of the lesser-known HTML elements: abbr, cite, code, dfn, figure, figcaption, kbd, samp, and var.

How do you mark up an accordion? — Sara Soueidan

I love this deep dive that Sara takes into the question of marking up content for progressive disclosure. It reminds me Dan’s SimpleQuiz from back in the day.

Then there’s this gem, which I think is a terrificly succinct explanation of the importance of meaningful markup:

It’s always necessary, in my opinion, to consider what content would render and look like in foreign environments, or in environments that are not controlled by our own styles and scripts. Writing semantic HTML is the first step in achieving truly resilient Web sites and applications.

Conversational Semantics · An A List Apart Article

I love, love, love all the little details of HTML that Aaron offers up here. And I really like how he positions non-visual user-agents like searchbots, screen readers, and voice assisants as headless UIs.

HTML is a truly robust and expressive language that is often overlooked and undervalued, but it has the incredible potential to nurture conversations with our users without requiring a lot of effort on our part. Simply taking the time to code web pages well will enable our sites to speak to our customers like they speak to each other. Thinking about how our sites are experienced as headless interfaces now will set the stage for more natural interactions between the real world and the digital one.

The Web I Want - DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻

Scores of people who just want to deliver their content and have it look vaguely nice are convinced you need every web technology under the sun to deliver text.

This is very lawnoffgetting but I can relate.

I made my first website about 20 years ago and it delivered as much content as most websites today. It was more accessible, ran faster and easier to develop then 90% of the stuff you’ll read on here.

20 years later I browse the Internet with a few tabs open and I have somehow downloaded many megabytes of data, my laptop is on fire and yet in terms of actual content delivery nothing has really changed.

Front-End Performance Checklist

A handy pre-launch go/no-go checklist to run through before your countdown.

Understanding why Semantic HTML is important, as told by TypeScript.

Oh, this is such a good analogy from Mandy! Choosing the right HTML element is like choosing the right data type in a strongly typed programming language.

Get to know the HTML elements available to you, and use the appropriate one for your content. Make the most it, like you would any language you choose to code with.

Accessibility: Start with the foundations | susan jean robertson

I encourage you to think about and make sure you are using the right elements at the right time. Sometimes I overthink this, but that’s because it’s that important to me - I want to make sure that the markup I use helps people understand the content, and doesn’t hinder them.

Designing for Everyone: Building Great Web Experiences for Any Device

The slides and video from a really great well-rounded talk by Aaron, filled with practical examples illustrating concepts like progressive enhancement and inclusive design.

On Designing and Building Toggle Switches

Sara shows a few different approaches to building accessible toggle switches:

Always, always start thinking about the markup and accessibility when building components, regardless of how small or simple they seem.

Short note on progressive ARIA by The Paciello Group

Léonie makes a really good point here: if you’re adding aria attributes to indicate interactions you’re making available through JavaScript, then make sure you also use JavaScript to add those aria attributes.

Web Components in 2018 - Blog | SitePen

A good explanation of web components, complete with some code examples.

Web Components are not a single technology. Instead, they are series of browser standards defined by the W3C allowing developers to build components in a way the browser can natively understand. These standards include:

• HTML Templates and Slots – Reusable HTML markup with entry points for user-specific markup
• Shadow DOM – DOM encapsulation for markup and styles
• Custom Elements – Defining named custom HTML elements with specific behaviour