Jens Oliver Meiert

Conformance

The Magic of the Most Minimal HTML Possible (and Why We Don’t Make Use of It)

On challenging XHTML–HTML and regular redos, by looking at HTML–HTML, full separation of concerns, and iterations.

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How Often Should We Speak About HTML Conformance?

Our field ships erroneous and fantasy HTML, all the time. When we analyze how often we talk about valid HTML, we obtain varying data. Let’s review what’s going on.

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DeepSeek and HTML

“What is the most minimal valid HTML document?”, DeepSeek-R1 edition.

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Testing 10 JavaScript Frameworks on Their HTML Defaults

When you validate the demo and starter projects of popular frameworks like React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, Astro, &c., what do you find? On challenging the idea that JavaScript frameworks could fuel the HTML crisis.

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HTML Conformance: A Comparison of 6.5 npm Validator Packages (With 1.5 Recommendations)

What do you do if you want to make sure you’re not writing and shipping fantasy HTML, but choose to or have to avoid the web-based W3C HTML validator?

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Where Has All the Valid HTML Gone

When we look at the state of HTML… how much of it actually is HTML?

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2024: 0.5% of the Global Top 200 Websites Use Valid HTML

The annual HTML conformance analysis, validating 200 home pages of the most popular websites. Despite improvements, there is no signal of commitment to valid output as a quality baseline to benefit end users as well as web development as a profession.

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A Node and Command Line Tool to Find Obsolete HTML

Ever wondered if and where you have obsolete HTML in your code base? Of course, there’s a tool for that.

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We Need to Talk More About Conformance, if We Want to Stop Fantasy HTML

Conformant and valid HTML is the exception on websites and in apps, even though valid output is a sign of professional web development. Given how rarely the topic is being discussed these days, we benefit from raising more awareness for HTML conformance and validation.

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“HTML First” Is Not HTML First

On what is and what isn’t “HTML First.” (It’s not just a hunch: It should start with HTML.)

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2023: 0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML

The latest analysis of HTML and CSS conformance of the most popular websites. The situation is only going to get better once we set higher expectations for the code we ship.

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On the Uniting Power of a Commitment to HTML Conformance

HTML is the language of the Web, there’s a quality standard—expectation—for HTML, but we don’t make use of it, yet if we would, it would come with several advantages, one of them being that it could unite and propel us to master more important challenges, which would be good again for our field and the Web.

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The Most Minimal Valid HTML Document

—isn’t that exciting, isn’t even new, but can use repeating in times of conformance neglect and AI-assisted coding.

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Conformance and Accessibility

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 are going to obsolete Success Criterion 4.1.1, which had been WCAG’s nod towards conformant HTML output. This is understandable, and it may even be good—to strengthen accessibility as well as conformance.

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2022: 0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML

When you looked at the top websites in 2021, you learned that 98% of them included invalid HTML. When you do the same for the Top 100 globally, this year, would things have improved? Updated data, with a look at our field’s inability to produce valid HTML output.

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The 6 Ways of Writing HTML (and Their Combinations)

There are 6 general ways of writing HTML: unsystematic, valid, semantic, accessible, required-only, and hyper-optimized. These types make for 19 combinations—the ways we write HTML.

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The 3-Second Frontend Developer Test

“Do you validate?” Be a frontend developer who ships valid HTML and CSS; hire frontend developers who ship valid HTML and CSS. End the time of unconditionally accepted sloppiness in professional frontend development.

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2021: 98% of the Top 100 U.S. Websites Use Invalid HTML

Is frontend development in the bad shape it’s said to be? Is it hyperbole when frontend developers are accused of poor quality work? When you look at the code of the most popular websites, the answer is clear.

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A Vision of Web Development

There is one thing every web developer should aspire to: writing the most minimal, semantically appropriate, valid HTML, and then never changing it. “Never” not in a sense of denial and refusal, but in the sense of a guiding light…

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Google and HTML/CSS Code Quality

For much of Google’s life time there have been few Google web pages of high code quality. That had changed over the last years, but now there are regressions. On the rise and fall of Google’s websites.

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CSS Validation and Vendor Extensions: Throw Warnings, Not Errors

If you understand valid code as a quality baseline, you validate your code. If you validate style sheets, you come across errors like “Property -moz-border-radius doesn’t exist’”…

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The 3 Ground Rules for Writing HTML

The fundamentals every web developer should know: on respecting syntax and semantics, avoiding presentational and behavioral markup, and leaving out everything that is not absolutely necessary.

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The Two Great Things About Validation (and Conformance)

There are two great things about validation: Validating helps technical understanding and thus contributes to awareness of respective specifications, and writing valid code is a sign of professionalism.

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When Validation Becomes Unimportant

Validation becomes unimportant only once you’re ahead of the game. Even then, truly mastering HTML and CSS, it’s best to stick with valid markup and styling. Improving latency might constitute the only exception—if at all.

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“Valid CSS” and Similar Claims Are Unprofessional

You know them. “Valid CSS” here, “Valid HTML” there, complemented by a “WAI AA” button. When these website claims hold true, that’s a great thing. Unfortunately, these conformance and quality claims have no place on professional websites.

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