Here’s a rundown of the most important updates to web standards you should know right now, and what they mean for your development workflow.
1. CSS Has Grown Up—Again
One of the most exciting areas of change is CSS. With new modules reaching maturity, developers now have even more tools for layout, interactivity, and visual design.
Container queries are a game-changer. Unlike media queries, which respond to the viewport size, container queries allow components to adapt to the size of their parent container. This means truly modular, responsive components are now achievable without complex JavaScript hacks.
Another welcome addition is CSS Subgrid, which enhances the power of CSS Grid layouts by allowing child elements to inherit grid lines from their parent. It makes deeply nested layouts more maintainable and consistent.
Also gaining traction is :has(), a parent selector pseudo-class that opens up new possibilities for styling based on child elements—a feature developers have wanted for years.
2. HTML: Small Changes, Big Impact
HTML might seem like it doesn’t change much, but a few key updates are worth noting. The <dialog> element, once experimental, is now supported across all major browsers. It provides a native, accessible way to create modal interfaces without third-party scripts.
Additionally, the push for semantic HTML continues. With accessibility and SEO more important than ever, using the correct elements—like <main>, <article>, and <section>—is strongly encouraged by both browsers and search engines.
3. JavaScript and ECMAScript 2024
Each year brings a new batch of ECMAScript features. For 2024, the focus is on improving readability and reducing boilerplate.
Highlights include:
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Record and Tuple types (still in proposal stages but progressing) for creating immutable data structures.
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Array grouping, allowing arrays to be grouped more naturally by key.
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Pattern matching, which introduces a more expressive and readable way to handle conditionals and destructuring.
Most modern browsers are quick to adopt these features, but checking compatibility remains best practice.
4. Accessibility Is Front and Centre
With increasing legal and ethical pressure to ensure the web is accessible to all users, updated standards now put greater emphasis on compliance with WCAG 2.2.
New success criteria in 2.2 focus on improved keyboard navigation, better target sizing, and accessible authentication. If your site isn’t meeting WCAG guidelines, now’s the time to audit and update.
Tooling like Lighthouse and axe DevTools can help identify issues early in development.
5. Performance and Core Web Vitals
Google continues to refine its Core Web Vitals metrics, placing more emphasis on real user experience. The Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric, which measures responsiveness, is set to replace First Input Delay (FID) as a key ranking factor.
This means developers must pay closer attention to how quickly a site responds after user input—not just how fast it loads. Optimising for INP includes reducing JavaScript execution time, streamlining main-thread activity, and using web workers where appropriate.
Final Thoughts
Keeping up with web standards can feel like chasing a moving target. But the good news is that modern web development tools—frameworks, browsers, and dev environments—are rapidly integrating these changes, making it easier to adopt best practices.
Whether you’re building large-scale applications or lightweight sites, embracing these updates ensures your work remains fast, accessible, and future-ready. Don’t wait until your code is outdated—get ahead of the curve and start exploring the latest standards today.