HTML5 and CSS3 — New web tools for more powerful communications

(This article originally appeared on the Creatonomy Blog.)

Acronyms like HTML 5 and CSS3 may sound like a foreign language. They actually are the newest versions of two main programming languages for websites.

HTML (short for “HyperText Markup Language”) is used to build web content, pages and sites, while CSS (short for “Cascading Style Sheets”) determines how those web pages appear by applying styles such as color, font size and much more. HTML and CSS almost always work together — it’s rare to find a web page that uses one without the other.

The changes introduced by HTML 5 will make it easier for search engines to navigate our web pages, plus make it easier to pull and display video, images and other data that exist outside of the actual web page. In a similar fashion, CSS3 will make it easier to style a web page, plus introduces several new style properties.

Both HTML 5 and CSS3 are officially still in the draft stage, but developers already are using what’s been developed. Why?

Upcoming versions of most major web browsers are being designed so that they can display all the new features found in HTML 5 and CSS3. That means eventually any website programmed with those languages should look the same regardless which web browser a person is using. As mentioned before, HTML 5 makes websites much more search engine friendly, which makes Search Engine Optimization easier. And finally, HTML 5 and CSS3 introduce a level of consistency in terms of how websites use and display rich media assets such as video, which ultimately will make it easier to add those assets to web pages.

The future of web programming is taking shape before our eyes, and things looks very promising!