The State of HTML 2024: What can we learn from it?

The tabindex attribute sits second in terms of usage and sentiment, showing a trend towards developers valuing aspects of HTML that are useful both for accessibility and giving a good user experience. ... … ## Pain Points Part of the pain of using HTML is keeping up to date with new features, and understanding how to use them. Features like Isolated Web Apps, EditContext and <model> for VR/AR content are all great examples of features that might be hugely useful for developers in all kinds of environments, but are suffering from lack of awareness. For each, the majority of respondents say they haven’t even heard of them, which is such a shame for the developers who worked so hard to develop them. Forms are a particular pain-point for developers building for the web. While the FormData API is generally well-liked among those who have used it, with its widespread cross-browser support and the way it simplifies capturing and using data from forms, the results show a relatively clear picture of how developers feel about forms in general… and it isn’t positive. Form styling and validation are noted as particularly tricky to handle. In addition to far-from-comprehensive validation methods, built-in browser styles force developers to continue to use hacks and overrides, despite relying on fewer of these than in the past (anybody else remember the pain of using Internet Explorer?). On that note, cross-browser compatibility tops the list of pain points when it comes to interactivity, even though this is trending downwards in terms of the negativity developers feel towards this aspect of HTML. SVG’s make a surprising appearance on the list, with 18% of respondents noting that they find them difficult to style with CSS. We can all agree they’re incredibly useful and common-place, it’s fair to say that they could be easier to customise. It’s fair to say respondents are divided around Web Components. A relatively new addition, first introduced in 2011 but only becoming widely supported as recently as 2018, web components have not gained widespread use just yet. Aspects like the <template> element (to store HTML not rendered immediately), and HTML modules (allowing you to import HTML files via JS imports) are well-liked by those who use them, respondents say the shadow DOM is not enjoyable to work with, and can feel complex to work with.