Using a span with a “bold” class is completely unsemantic (is that a word?), though, because you’re not describing the data at all, and the class name of “bold” (and I’ve seen class names representing colors and font sizes, etc.) is a very poor way to describe the class.

The point is whether you think the data is semantically significant. I only use classes like .bold or .italic when semantics isn’t important, and when the data would almost always be bold, or could just as easily not be bold.

Honestly, though, I have never experienced a redesign that didn’t also involve a massive re-code. Most web sites are still visually designed. And you always have to make a compromise between aesthetics and semantics. So in practical terms, I don’t think <span class=”bold”> is that big of a deal.

Plus having a bold class (which I usually call .b to save a couple of bytes) gives some added flexibility when you want to make one member of a particular class bold.

For example, rather than having .title and .title-bold you can just combine those classes in your span <span class="title b">.

Using a span with a “bold” class is completely unsemantic (is that a word?), though, because you’re not describing the data at all, and the class name of “bold” (and I’ve seen class names representing colors and font sizes, etc.) is a very poor way to describe the class.

The point is whether you think the data is semantically significant. I only use classes like .bold or .italic when semantics isn’t important, and when the data would almost always be bold, or could just as easily not be bold.

Honestly, though, I have never experienced a redesign that didn’t also involve a massive re-code. Most web sites are still visually designed. And you always have to make a compromise between aesthetics and semantics. So in practical terms, I don’t think <span class=”bold”> is that big of a deal.

Plus having a bold class (which I usually call .b to save a couple of bytes) gives some added flexibility when you want to make one member of a particular class bold.

For example, rather than having .title and .title-bold you can just combine those classes in your span <span class="title b">.

But is every bold-faced or italicized item semantically significant?

For example, when I bold “Technorati-ism.” To me, there’s no reason to emphasize it, except that it looks pretty on a page or screen. It’s not text that you’d want a screen reader to read at a louder volume. In fact, it’s probably one of the least important items on the page. But because it is a different kind of content, I prefer to set it apart in some way; I could easily have used a paragraph border.

In that case, using <b> or <span class=”b”> is totally appropriate, (although, semantically-speaking, <span class=”technorati”> would probably be best).

But is every bold-faced or italicized item semantically significant?

For example, when I bold “Technorati-ism.” To me, there’s no reason to emphasize it, except that it looks pretty on a page or screen. It’s not text that you’d want a screen reader to read at a louder volume. In fact, it’s probably one of the least important items on the page. But because it is a different kind of content, I prefer to set it apart in some way; I could easily have used a paragraph border.

In that case, using <b> or <span class=”b”> is totally appropriate, (although, semantically-speaking, <span class=”technorati”> would probably be best).