The Difference Between a Button and a Link
The author proposes adding 'action' and 'method' attributes to HTML buttons to standardize how they handle requests. The article argues that buttons and links serve distinct semantic purposes, with links representing destinations and buttons representing actions.
Why it matters
Standardizing button behavior could improve web accessibility and browser-native functionality for interactive elements.
Of the three proposals in the Triptych Project , my multi-year odyssey to add a few small-but-powerful features to HTML, the one that generates the most questions is Button Actions . The proposal itself is very straightforward: we want to add the action and method attributes to the button.
< button action =" /begin " method =" GET ">Start</ button > Button Actions are such a simple primitive that people often ask why they’re needed. The answer rests on a distinction that web users intuitively understand but rarely have to think about directly: the difference between a button and a link.
I added a detailed “Buttons vs Links” section to the proposal, but I think it deserves a blog-style explanation as well, because most of the existing ones miss the mark.
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