Twas the night before #30DaysofHTML...

What to know about the #30DaysofHTML challenge

We are so pleased you’ve joined us for #30DaysofHTML. What should you expect? How does this work? All of your questions are answered here.

We Assume You Know HTML

❌ We are not going to teach you what’s a tag, an element, an attribute, or how to set up a web page. Nope. You are on your own for knowing this.

✅ We are going to remind you of elements you know but haven’t used in years. Or elements you never learned in the first place. Or elements you’ve used incorrectly and will now use correctly going forward.

🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏿‍♂️🤷🏻 If you don’t know HTML, but want to learn, we recommend watching the 🎒free bootcamp at Frontend Masters.

Parts of the Challenge

We’ve grouped our elements into seven exciting units:

📬 Who Said What From Where

🔍 Details and Definitions

✍️ Clarifying and Editing

🧪 Science and Geekery

🧩 Parts (is Parts) of a Web Page

📈 Tables for Tabular Data

🎼 Multimedia Extravaganza

Daily Explanation

Every day you’ll receive an email with at least one HTML element discussed in detail. Sometimes you’ll get two elements. Sometimes there’s an attribute or two.

We’ll explain the context in which you use these elements and/or attributes, when not to use them, and a little known fact about them. We provide links to more reading and to video content where you can learn more.

Finally, we’ll give you a short quiz or a quick exercise each day, so you can try out the elements we’ve introduced and test your knowledge.

Don’t worry. No one will see your grade. 😁

Periodic Challenges

At the end of each unit, we’ll give you a larger challenge. This will consist of some content in CodePen that you’ll be asked to mark up using the elements and attributes you’ve learned during the unit.

We’ll also give you our answer. Sometimes answers. Jen and Erika agree on lots of things, but not everything. And there’s no one single answer to marking up content; it’s all about the meaning you want to convey.

What’s Not Included

💯 This challenge is certified 100% free of JavaScript.

It’s 99% free of CSS. We may mention it occasionally. But not often.

The goal is to focus on HTML and not worry about how your web page looks, because looks are about CSS, not HTML. After all, if you start with great markup, you can write great CSS and JavaScript around it.

Measuring Success

We will consider this challenge a success if any one of the following happens to you the next time you code a web page:

❤️ You are embarrassed by the <div> monoculture in your work. Better, you decide to change it.

💛 You decide that maybe you could incorporate a few more <article> elements into your site. Or <figure>. Or definition lists. Or <details>!

💚 You identify one improperly used element in your HTML in the next 30 days, and you fix it with the right usage.

💙 You have fun, and ask Jen and Erika to run another challenge. #30DaysofCSS anyone? #15DaysofForms?

It’s Not Too Late to Join

Please retweet and invite your friends to sign up! We start tomorrow, April 1.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.