What is the different between the "b" and "strong" tags? What are "phrase" tags for screen readers?
Posted by jerothe in 
This was a topic that I thought I understood, but apparently I didn’t.
Up until yesterday, my understand was that <strong> was always better to use, especially for accessibility reasons for those web users who are hindered in their web surfing. My understanding a couple of months back was that Screen Readers actually read HTML code out loud with the text, and for that reason, it was better to use <strong> to mark up important words because “strong” read out loud meant a lot more than “b”.
I hadn’t connected the ideas, but when I was looking at a tutorial the other day things came together for me.
It is ok from a validation standpoint to use the <b> tag, it isn’t depreciated in XHTML 1.0, and it does the same thing that <strong> does visually.
The key is in how the screen reader interprets the tag. A “bold” tag doesn’t mean anything to a screen reader, it is purely there for visual markup reasons. But if we use the “strong” tag, not only will it bold the text visually on screen, but it will also be emphasized when read by the screen reader.
So keep this in the back of your mind when choosing your HTML markup. Don’t just bold something because, but because you want it to be emphasized. Your impaired users will thank you that your web page makes sense read out loud as well as to those who read it when they visit.
