<story><title>Links are not buttons (2013)</title><url>https://karlgroves.com/2013/05/14/links-are-not-buttons-neither-are-divs-and-spans/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mr-wendel</author><text>The problem is that links provide a very reliable way to perform a controlled HTTP request to get a dynamic response from the backend.... without using JavaScript. I love JavaScript, but if device reusability is a serious concern then JavaScript is the elephant in the room, not this topic. Is it available? What version is supported? What quirks does the engine have? To be fair... it was posted in 2013 :D.&lt;p&gt;The only working alternative (editing if I stand corrected!) using buttons is to make them form buttons. Now otherwise intuitive behaviors (e.g. forward&amp;#x2F;back, refresh) are laden with &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re about to resend data!&amp;quot; warnings that completely break the flow.&lt;p&gt;To me, it makes perfect sense why this trend evolved. Most people agree with the underlying premise about user expectation on button vs link. Dressing links up as button is a direct response to that. I understand the technical arguments, but users care what it looks like and how it behaves, not how you implemented it.&lt;p&gt;Edits:&lt;p&gt;- Yes, you can use &amp;lt;form method=&amp;quot;get&amp;quot;...&amp;gt; without scary browser warnings. It just gets a but ugly if you have lots of buttons, as each needs its own form wrapper.&lt;p&gt;- 303 redirects to POST request are a handy pattern to be aware of no matter what :)</text></comment>
<story><title>Links are not buttons (2013)</title><url>https://karlgroves.com/2013/05/14/links-are-not-buttons-neither-are-divs-and-spans/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>superkuh</author><text>Everything is a button now that javascript applications have replaced HTML documents. And there are no such things as anchors or links anymore. They are not URLs but instead triggers for more javascript execution. We&amp;#x27;re, unfortunately, well past this minor problem and onto much more serious ones that eclipse it.</text></comment>