The Age of Optimized Ergonomics: CSS Ascends

Greetings, my friends in code. Welcome back to the scriptorium.

For years, we have toiled under the weight of heavy JavaScript libraries to achieve simple UI patterns, mimicking native behavior with scripts as if trying to transmute lead into gold. But the winds are changing. We are currently living in a moment where the platform is handing us tools that don't just tweak the visual layer, but fundamentally redefine how we architect interfaces. As we settle into 2026, it is clear that we are entering an era of "Optimized Ergonomics."

The Chrome team’s latest report, "CSS Wrapped 2025," acts as a manifesto for this dynamic, native web. We are moving away from fighting the browser and towards sculpting interfaces in their natural state. Today, I wish to illuminate the most impactful features that allow us to handle logic, state, and complex interactions using nothing but CSS.

The Evolution of the Native Select

If you have spent as many years in the monastery of web development as I have, you know the "decades-old problem" of the dropdown menu. Clients desire rich customization—flags inside options, custom spacing, grid layouts—and for years, our only recourse was to hide the native <select> and rebuild it entirely with <div> soups and JavaScript event listeners. This was often heavy and inaccessible.

The new appearance: base-select is the answer to our prayers. It allows us to fully customize the select element, including the button and the dropdown list (via the ::picker(select) pseudo-element), while retaining all the native accessibility benefits.

Crucially, we must implement this with progressive enhancement. By wrapping our styles in a feature query, we ensure that older browsers simply render the standard system select, while modern ones get the rich experience:

select {
  /* Default styles for older browsers */
  font-size: 1rem;

  /* Opt-in for the new customizable select */
  @supports (appearance: base-select) {
    &, &::picker(select) {
      appearance: base-select;
      background: var(--surface-color);
      border: 1px solid var(--border-color);
    }
    
    /* We can now style options like standard block elements */
    option {
      padding: 1rem;
      display: grid;
      grid-template-columns: 24px 1fr;
      gap: 0.5rem;
    }
  }
}

This feature significantly reduces technical debt. For a deeper dive into the mechanics of this API, I recommend reading the documentation on the Open UI proposal, which laid the groundwork for this standard.

Carousels Without the Scripting Spells

Creating carousels has historically been a friction point. Clients love them; developers dread the JavaScript required to make them accessible and performant. The arrival of ::scroll-marker and ::scroll-button() pseudo-elements changes this dynamic entirely.

We can now generate navigation dots and scroll buttons purely with CSS, linked natively to the scroll container. This is not just convenient; it is a triumph for performance. The browser handles the intersection logic, ensuring the active dot updates as the user scrolls, with zero main-thread blocking.

• ::scroll-marker-group: Creates the container for your navigation dots.
• ::scroll-marker: The individual dots generated by the items in the carousel.
• ::scroll-button(): Native next/previous buttons.

Here is how we might construct a carousel that automatically highlights the active slide's marker:

.carousel {
  overflow-x: auto;
  /* Automatically groups generated markers after the carousel */
  scroll-marker-group: after; 

  /* Style the children to generate markers */
  .slide {
    &::scroll-marker {
      content: " ";
      width: 12px;
      height: 12px;
      border-radius: 50%;
      background: #ccc;
      cursor: pointer;
    }

    /* The browser automatically handles the active state */
    &::scroll-marker:target-current {
      background: var(--primary-color);
    }
  }
}

For those interested in the finer details of scroll-linked animations, the Chrome Developers blog has been documenting the evolution of these scroll-driven capabilities extensively.

Logic, State, and Queries

Perhaps the most exciting shift is the introduction of genuine logic within our stylesheets. We are finally getting conditionals with the if() function and state detection with scroll-state.

The if() Statement

The if() function acts like a ternary operator for CSS values. It allows us to apply values based on support, media, or style queries inline, reducing the verbosity of our code.

Scroll State Queries

Previously, knowing if a sticky header was currently "stuck" required an IntersectionObserver hack. Now, we can query this state declaratively. By setting container-type: scroll-state, we can style children based on whether they are stuck, snapped, or overflowing.

To visualize the magnitude of this shift, consider how we used to handle these common UI patterns versus the modern approach:

You can read more about the mathematical possibilities of these functions in recent articles on CSS-Tricks, where the community frequently dissects these new math functions.

Anchored Container Queries

Finally, I must mention a feature that solves a specific annoyance we have all faced: the tooltip overflow problem. When using Anchor Positioning, if a tooltip flips from top to bottom because of space constraints, the "arrow" often stays pointing the wrong way.

With anchored container queries, specifically @container anchored(fallback: flip-block), we can style the element based on which fallback position the browser actually chose. This allows the arrow to rotate dynamically to match the tooltip's new position.

.tooltip {
  position-anchor: --my-trigger;
  position-area: top;
  position-try-fallbacks: flip-block;

  /* If the browser flips the tooltip to the bottom... */
  @container anchored(fallback: flip-block) {
    .arrow {
      transform: rotate(180deg);
    }
  }
}

For a comprehensive guide on anchor positioning, Ahmad Shadeed often publishes excellent visual breakdowns of these layout mechanics.

Conclusion

My friends, we are witnessing a world where CSS is becoming capable of handling logic, state, and complex interactions that previously belonged solely to JavaScript. From the base-select to scroll-state queries, these features allow us to build lighter, more robust applications.

I encourage you to open your editors—your modern-day parchments—and begin experimenting with these properties. While we must always be mindful of browser support, the path forward is clear: the web is becoming more native, and our stylesheets are becoming smarter.

Until next time, may your pixels be perfect and your logic be pure.