HTML5 & CSS3

Overview

HTML and CSS are treated as the trivial part of a project, which is exactly why so many sites are slow, inaccessible or subtly broken on real devices. This layer decides how quickly the first screen paints, whether a screen reader can navigate the page, whether the layout survives a 320px phone and a 1440px laptop, and whether Google can understand the content at all.

We write markup by hand. Every element is chosen, and generated div-soup does not reach production.

Semantic structure

Correct elements carry meaning that browsers, assistive technology and search engines all use. A <button> is focusable and keyboard-operable for free; a <div onclick> is not, and every workaround for that is a bug waiting to happen.

• Landmark elements — header, nav, main, article, aside, footer — so keyboard and screen reader users can jump between regions.
• One h1 per page and a heading order that does not skip levels, because heading navigation is how many screen reader users read a page.
• Real form elements with associated <label>s, correct type attributes so phones show the right keyboard, and autocomplete values so browsers can fill fields.
• Schema.org structured data in JSON-LD, giving search engines an explicit description of the page rather than a guess.

Accessibility

We build to WCAG 2.2 AA. Beyond being the right thing to do and increasingly a legal requirement, accessible markup is better markup — it is more semantic, more robust and easier to maintain.

• Keyboard operability for every interactive element, with a visible focus indicator that we do not remove.
• Colour contrast checked against AA thresholds at design time, not patched afterwards.
• Meaningful alt text, and empty alt on decorative images so screen readers skip them.
• ARIA used only where native HTML cannot express the pattern — incorrect ARIA is worse than none.
• Respect for prefers-reduced-motion, because animation causes genuine discomfort for some users.
• Testing with a real screen reader and keyboard, not only an automated scanner. Automated tools catch roughly a third of real issues.

Modern CSS

CSS has changed enormously, and using it properly removes a great deal of JavaScript that used to be necessary.

• Grid for two-dimensional layout, Flexbox for one — used for what each is actually good at.
• Custom properties for design tokens, so colour, spacing and typography live in one place and theming is a variable change rather than a find-and-replace.
• Container queries, so a component responds to the space it is given instead of to the viewport. This is what finally makes components genuinely reusable.
• Fluid typography with clamp(), replacing stacks of breakpoint overrides.
• :has(), logical properties and modern colour functions where browser support allows, with sensible fallbacks where it does not.
• Layered, predictable specificity so the stylesheet does not degenerate into !important.

Performance

The front end is where Core Web Vitals are won or lost.

• LCP: the hero image or heading preloaded and correctly sized, with no render-blocking resource in front of it.
• CLS: explicit width and height on images and embeds, space reserved for anything that loads late, and fonts that do not reflow the page when they swap.
• INP: lean event handlers and no long tasks blocking the main thread on interaction.
• Critical CSS inlined, the rest deferred; unused CSS removed rather than shipped.
• Modern image formats with responsive srcset and sizes, so a phone never downloads a 2400px image.

Responsive and cross-browser

We build mobile-first and test on real devices, not just a resized desktop window. That covers current Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge, iOS and Android, and the awkward middle sizes — tablets in landscape, small laptops — where layouts most often fail. Touch targets are sized for fingers, and we check that a layout still works at 200% browser zoom.

How we work

1. Review the design for accessibility and responsive behaviour before any markup is written — contrast, focus states and how each component reflows.
2. Build a component library so spacing, typography and colour stay consistent across the site.
3. Validate markup, run automated accessibility checks, then test manually with keyboard and screen reader.
4. Measure Core Web Vitals on a throttled mobile connection and fix what the numbers show.

What you get

• Hand-written semantic markup that search engines and assistive technology can both read.
• A WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility pass with the results documented.
• Core Web Vitals within Google's thresholds on mobile.
• A documented component library that keeps future pages consistent.

Accessibility is not a feature you add at the end. It is a property of markup that was written correctly in the first place.