I share the same feeling of relief as Mike when I get that final approval on a design and move to the markup and positioning…

There are just so many benefits to the extra work you put in to make sure your markup is as clean and semantic as possible:

• semantic code downloads the browser faster because the markup is condensed in shorter statements
• it will be easier to update the markup, change it in the future, or hand off a project to someone else because semantic code is easy to understand
• people with disabilities such as vision or hearing problems benefit because the browsers they use, called screen readers, need clean markup to be able to interpret correctly for the user. This is also known as “accessible”.
• your site will show higher in the search engines because clean, and not bloated code is easier for them to understand

Preparing XHTML in the cleanest and semantic way is a challenge that I look forward to with each new design I complete. I always try to learn a new or better way to accomplish something each time I convert a design to markup and hope that with each project I complete, I am getting a Zenful enhancement to my knowledge base and portfolio 🙂