HTML Guide for hand

CSS: “cursor”: “hand” is not a “cursor” value.

Replace the cursor value hand with the standard pointer to indicate a clickable item, as the CSS cursor: hand is not valid in modern web standards.

CSS specifies the cursor property to change the appearance of the mouse pointer over an element, to indicate the interaction type. The value hand was utilized in old versions of Internet Explorer to denote a clickable link or button. However, the CSS specification uses pointer as the standard value to imply that an area is interactive or clickable, such as hyperlinks or buttons.

If you’re using cursor: hand, it will not be recognized by browsers following the current CSS standard, leading to the W3C Validator warning about an invalid value. To resolve this issue, simply replace hand with pointer. This change makes sure that the appearance of the cursor is displayed according to the intended behavior across all modern browsers and platforms.

Example

Invalid CSS:

button {
  cursor: hand; /* Invalid value */
}

Valid CSS:

button {
  cursor: pointer; /* Correct standard value */
}

In both code snippets, the CSS is applied to a button element. By using cursor: pointer, the mouse pointer turns into a hand icon, indicating that the button is clickable and adheres to the W3C standards.