Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

shkspr.mobi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 387 posts

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#111

Post by wizzwizz4 »

codazoda wrote: post #108
ogre_codes wrote: post #10

This is a fantastic article, it does miss one very key point about bog-standard HTML which is worth mentioning though. The standard widgets are all accessible, people with screen readers, limited mobility, poor vision, etc, all rely on pages being written so the devices they use to read the web can function properly. People who choose to eschew these standard components very frequently end up with a site which is unu…

> Very few people have the skill to turn a div into an effective button, yet over and over I see web sites with rows of buttons which are in fact just divs with javascript behind them. I created a minimalist CSS framework called Neat CSS ( https://neat.joeldare.com ). I use anchors instead of buttons and explain why in the quote below. I'd love feedback on the accessibility of that alternative. It's best to use seman…

Conceptually, those are links, not buttons. Buttons are for forms and JavaScript and such.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#113

Post by tpxl »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #72
salutonmundo wrote: post #63

The worst web browser I have access to is the "experimental" one on a Kindle 4. Most web pages that one might want to visit will not load in this web browser—because it does not support modern versions of TLS. For the reasons mentioned in this article—it's probably a good idea to keep plain HTTP access available on your websites.

This, a thousand times. No one is going to mitm someone browsing my text blog. On the other hand, https creates many barriers to access, including recent version requirement, time sync, and extra cpu and bandwidth.

ISPs regularly MITM http websites to inject ads (in the US even).

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#114

Post by lastofthemojito »

ogre_codes wrote: post #10

This is a fantastic article, it does miss one very key point about bog-standard HTML which is worth mentioning though. The standard widgets are all accessible, people with screen readers, limited mobility, poor vision, etc, all rely on pages being written so the devices they use to read the web can function properly. People who choose to eschew these standard components very frequently end up with a site which is unu…

One of the great things about accessibility is that it often doesn't just benefit people with disabilities.

My wife and I have watched a lot of TV in the past year with the volume down and captioning on, while we enjoy some down time while our baby is sleeping.

A ramped entrance to a building allows wheelchair-bound folks access, but it also helps able-bodied people using delivery dollies.

Making simple, lightweight web pages makes them accessible to those with older browsers and devices, but it also saves power consumption, time, and frustration for folks on M1 MacBook Pros.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#115

Post by ogre_codes »

codazoda wrote: post #108
ogre_codes wrote: post #10

This is a fantastic article, it does miss one very key point about bog-standard HTML which is worth mentioning though. The standard widgets are all accessible, people with screen readers, limited mobility, poor vision, etc, all rely on pages being written so the devices they use to read the web can function properly. People who choose to eschew these standard components very frequently end up with a site which is unu…

> Very few people have the skill to turn a div into an effective button, yet over and over I see web sites with rows of buttons which are in fact just divs with javascript behind them. I created a minimalist CSS framework called Neat CSS ( https://neat.joeldare.com ). I use anchors instead of buttons and explain why in the quote below. I'd love feedback on the accessibility of that alternative. It's best to use seman…

FWIW, I'm not an expert on this so take what I say with a grain of salt.

An anchor tag that links to another page but looks like a button is probably fine. So long as you can access them via the keyboard (tabbing to it) and they have a distinct appearance when focused so if you are tabbing through you can see whats active (this is different from the hover attribute).

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#116

Post by K0nserv »

ogre_codes wrote: post #105
K0nserv wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has happened in that scenario is that the designer has failed in their job. Unfortunately it’s up to engineers to catch this, which they often don’t

Designers don't really know or understand the limits of how you can style a select box. Nor should they need to. A good team will work together around the limits. Also, FWIW some of the problem is with the browser makers (still!!). CSS still has a lot of browser specific quirks when working with some components.

I'm sure the designers who work on GDS[0] and its design system do. You are probably right that most don't, they should in my opinion. Of course you are also right that good teams will work together on this. I think the best designers have an understanding of HTML/CSS or the native toolkits if they work on Android/iOS. They know when the user experience will be signficantly improved by a custom component and work with their team to make it accessible and good in those case. They also know when not to reinvent a select to make it look slightly better.

This subthread is about why divs are used for buttons and why developers reimplement existing HTML components poorly. Good designers help their teams avoid this, good engineers work with their designers to avoid it.

0: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit...

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#117

Post by ziftface »

apabepa wrote: post #19

I am not a front-end developer but looking at it from a distance I really don't get modern web design. Sure some sites might need fancy javascript single page features, like if your webpage is an interactive map or realtime game, but most sites are just text and some pictures. Whats with all the javascript? Your site looks just like the next one anyway! It feels like an "Emperor's New Clothes" situation or maybe more…

The fact is, the Javascript ecosystem is unmatched when it comes to very quickly creating frontend applications. Maybe another set of tools would have been better, but that doesn't really matter. This set of tools is what everyone uses, and a lot of effort and creativity goes into making js frontend development as smooth and fast as possible.

I often need to very quickly make internal services at my job and while I like working in other languages (and i do for longer term projects), those always take longer to set up and get working. In js with next you're up and running in less than 60 seconds and if you're doing crud stuff, most of the work is frankly done for you.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#119

Post by ratww »

cashewchoo wrote: post #91

As someone who did a lot of desktop application development prior to the web just totally gutting native app development, this is my take: The problem is that people want to make dynamic applications that have a rich UX and deep system integration while being highly portable. Unfortunately, it turns out that "portable" is basically a Great Filter for applications. If you can't run it, you can't use it and the rich UX…

My memories of non-web toolkits are not as fond as yours.

You mention Swing, but I remember lots of my non-programmer friends dreading having to use applications made with Java, since they were considered sluggish and resource-intensive. They also had a certain look and feel to them that made them stick like a sore thumb compared to other apps, and a lot of people knew by looking when an app was made with Java.

Java was actually pretty fast even back in the early 2000s, but thanks to Swing et al (and to the JDK requirement), Java desktop apps had a reputation was much worse than Electron or JS-heavy websites have today. Especially among non-programmers.

Strangely, OTOH, Visual Basic had a terrible reputation among programmers, but most Windows users had no idea about it since it used native widgets.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#120

Post by benbristow »

ogre_codes wrote: post #10

This is a fantastic article, it does miss one very key point about bog-standard HTML which is worth mentioning though. The standard widgets are all accessible, people with screen readers, limited mobility, poor vision, etc, all rely on pages being written so the devices they use to read the web can function properly. People who choose to eschew these standard components very frequently end up with a site which is unu…

> Very few people have the skill to turn a div into an effective button, yet over and over I see web sites with rows of buttons which are in fact just divs with javascript behind them.

You can add role="button" and a modern browser will treat it just like a normal button and all the accessibility that comes with it.

Post reply on HN