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What is Progressive Enhancement?

A web design strategy that starts with basic functionality for all browsers and progressively adds advanced features for capable ones.

Progressive enhancement builds from a baseline of semantic HTML that works everywhere, adds CSS for visual presentation, then layers JavaScript for interactivity. This ensures content is accessible even if CSS or JavaScript fails to load. The approach contrasts with graceful degradation (building for modern browsers first, then patching for older ones). Examples include forms that work without JavaScript (standard submit), images with proper alt text, and server-side rendering with client-side enhancement. Progressive enhancement aligns with web accessibility, SEO (search engines primarily read HTML), and resilience. Feature detection (not browser detection) guides which enhancements to apply.

Related Terms

TypeScript
A typed superset of JavaScript that adds static type checking, interfaces, and advanced IDE support to JavaScript development.
CORS Headers
HTTP headers that control cross-origin resource sharing between different domains, specifying allowed origins, methods, and headers.
HATEOAS
Hypermedia As The Engine Of Application State — a REST constraint where API responses include links to related actions and resources.
Lazy Loading
A technique that delays loading non-critical resources until they are needed, improving initial page load performance.
Web Font Optimization
Techniques for loading custom fonts efficiently to minimize their impact on page load performance and visual stability.
HTTP/3
The latest HTTP version that uses QUIC instead of TCP, providing faster connections and better performance on unreliable networks.
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