Charlie Morris - Markup matters - Laracon AU 2025

Charlie Morris shows how semantic HTML underpins every accessible and consistent user experience on the web. With clear demonstrations using screen readers, voice control and the browser’s accessibility tree, she reveals how small markup decisions in Laravel apps either empower or exclude users. 📚 ## Chapters 02:20 Charlie’s journey into accessibility 03:26 The breadth of assistive technology scenarios beyond disability alone 05:43 The web as a conversation between humans and machines 06:58 What happens when CSS or JavaScript are removed from a page versus removing HTML entirely 08:15 How a visually polished interface completely collapses for assistive tech because of div based markup and click handlers 10:18 Why semantic HTML is not more work 10:56 Where accessibility standards come from 12:02 DOM as the layer assistive tech interacts with and why its structure must remain consistent 13:31 Users navigate using DOM meaning, not visual styling 14:21 How screen readers behave between visually identical forms, with very different markup 16:23 Browser accessibility trees and why assistive tech cannot guess missing info 17:42 Top Laravel markup issues 18:10 How visual styling overrides semantic meaning 19:40 Building reusable components that enforce semantic headings and meaningful hierarchy decisions 20:44 When to use a link, a button or static text, and why mismatching behaviour confuses assistive tech users 22:04 Silent SVGs, meaningful versus decorative images, and why icon only buttons must have accessible names 23:10 Demonstration of labelled versus unlabelled SVG icons when using voice control and screen readers https://x.com/CharlieYalf https://bsky.app/profile/charlieyalf.bsky.social https://laracon.au