How should I highlight important text?

Question

What is the appropriate method to code visually emphasized text?

Answer

If there is visually emphasized text on your page, use `<strong>` for bold and `<em>` for italics. The main difference between using `<b>` and `<strong>` is that, the `<b>` tagĀ  draws attention to text but does not convey any additional importance. Whereas the <strong> element is for content that conveys greater importance.

If the emphasis is purely for presentation for instance visually darkening or italicizing text, but you would not pronounce it differently; then use CSS font and font-weight properties to obtain the desired appearance.

For more information, the Accessible Web Academy course Sequence and Semantics includes in-depth discussion about assistive technologies present content in DOM order and using semantic markup to introduce meaning into a web page.

Free Tools to Continue Learning

Accessible Web Company Logo

Accessible Web RAMP

Monitor your website and manage your progress towards WCAG conformance.

Accessible Web Company Logo

Accessible Web Academy

Career specific courses to help power up your accessibility knowledge.