| While I agree I do think there's some "aspiration of purity/correctness" in your approach that I've long let go of. I look at the royal mess that is HTML/CSS/JS as a necessary evil, required when we want to target browsers. To me it's "just the presentation layer". In my work I put a lot more emphasis on correctness in the db schema, or business logic in the backend. When it comes to the messy presentation layer I prefer to write a little as possible, while still ending up with somewhat maintainable code. And for this Tailwind fits the bill really well: LLMs write it very well, new devs understand it quick, and it's quite easy to read-back/adjust the code later. I 100% agree a Tailwind project is not the best way for a new dev to learn HTML/CSS. But then I prefer the new dev to focus on great db schemas, intuitive APIs, test-able biz logic, etc. Fiddling with the mess that's HTML/CSS is not the place where I consider human attention is best spent on (or where developers pick up skills to become much better developers). |
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| ▲ | flossly 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I use Tailwind and have all kinds of "screen reader" directives in my templates. Not sure if it helps, but if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them. It seems that Tailwind is now blamed for the mess that is HTML/CSS. Tailwind certainly allows for accessible designs; it may not be the ideal solution, sure, but what we aim for is "good enough". | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > but if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them. Isn't this slightly backwards? Why would blind users sign up if the platform isn't usable for them in the first place? It has to be usable for them for them to become users :) | |
| ▲ | throwaway24274 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's not just blind people, but also people with reduced eyesight. As I'm getting older, I really appreciate good contrast and the possibility to zoom in without breaking the layout. | | |
| ▲ | u_fucking_dork 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | And how does tailwind or the structure of the underlying html of the page change or affect that? |
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| ▲ | TonyAlicea10 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I mentioned blind but there’s lots of others. Folks sitting a desk whose eyesight are getting worse and are scared to say so for fear of losing their job, for example. This happens. Side note: if you aren’t deliberately choosing semantic elements and instead dropping aria attributes onto a bunch of divs this is an anti-pattern. | |
| ▲ | reaperducer 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | if we get our first blind user I will gladly make some admends to make it more usable for them. Not good enough. You have to be accessible before it is needed in order to avoid legal liability. And how do you expect to get a blind user if they already cannot use your product? None of the doctors I build web sites for are currently blind. I know this because I talk to them regularly. But I still build the web sites for the future, when HR might hire a doctor or nurse or other person who is blind, or partially sighted, or has trouble with their muscles, or has difficulty distinguishing colors. Doing the right thing isn't that hard. Not doing it is just lazy. | | |
| ▲ | flossly 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You call it lazy. I call it "focus" or avoiding pre-mature optimization. I find the "legal liability" claim hilarious... I do better than 95% of the web: as I said I HAVE some screen reader directives (just did not test it), and labels to make the app more accessible. | | |
| ▲ | 48terry an hour ago | parent [-] | | > You call it lazy. I call it "focus" Is this to be read that disabled people and their needs, or more directly from the replied-to comment, "doing the right thing", are not a focus of yours, flossly? | | |
| ▲ | LtWorf an hour ago | parent [-] | | A former coworker of mine opened a meeting saying "we are so good, we care about accessibility". I had been complaining for months and finally a customer had said "we won't buy your product unless it complies to the law". |
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| ▲ | 0x3f 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sounds like you're kind of just talking your book though. Person who makes accessible sites suggests you need an accessible site. Blind people aren't the only ones who might need modifications. You could have an infinitely long list of adjustments for all kinds of disabilities, and tell me I'm lazy for not doing each of them. Why are blind people special? | | |
| ▲ | well_ackshually 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You are lazy for not doing accessibility adjustments, because accessibility isn't for blind users. It's for the deaf ones, the ones with poor eyesight, the ones with mental deficiencies, the ones with motor issues like Parkinson's, the ones browsing your site shitfaced at 4AM, and so on and so on. Accessibility isn't a checklist to cover your ass for a percentage of the population: it's for everyone. It literally makes your website less shit. You slapping an aria-label doesn't fix things. | | |
| ▲ | 0x3f 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Every moment you spend doing accessibility is a moment you spend not doing other things. You could argue it has a high RoI to do accessibility, fine, but that doesn't make it lazy _not_ to do it. Maybe I have even higher RoI/EV stuff to be doing. | | |
| ▲ | esseph an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | You just told a bunch of potential and current customers that they're not worth the ROI. Pretty sure they'll remember that, and they'll talk about it a lot. | |
| ▲ | 48terry an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Maybe I have even higher RoI/EV stuff to be doing. I mean, to readers of these comments, I think it's right there for you: 0x3f will take "higher ROI" over "accommodate and support disabled people". | | |
| ▲ | 0x3f an hour ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, thats explicitly what I'm saying so I'm not sure it needs repeating. That has very little to do with it being lazy though, is the point. We were already implicitly discussing RoI when we were talking about 'legal consequences' above. This is how people decide between alternatives, generally. |
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| ▲ | well_ackshually 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Accessibility is done while you do it. Not as an afterthought. But if you're having a higher ROI writing absolute crap, feel free, it's not my website. | | |
| ▲ | 0x3f an hour ago | parent [-] | | You're just expressing a normative view here, it's not very interesting or informationally-dense. You care about accessibility more than I do. That doesn't make not doing it 'crap'. | | |
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| ▲ | ncphillips 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | We use tailwind and are capable of building accessible websites without any issue. People could make all the same mistakes with CSS for accessibility. It’s the not knowing how to make accessible content that leads to inaccessible content, not the tool you use to implement the styling. |
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| ▲ | jbreckmckye 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What does Tailwind have to do with accessibility? Most significant HTML markup is block level elements. The CSS is completely orthogonal. I feel like old-school frontend devs bring up accessibility as a kind of bogeyman. It reminds me of the myth that CSS style X or Y breaks accessibility "because screen readers expect semantic CSS classes". Zeldman (of A List Apart) promulgated that disinformation for years, until someone actually told him screen readers don't work that way. 90% of people who use a11y as a rhetorical cudgel have never actually used AT themselves. | | |
| ▲ | TonyAlicea10 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It’s not Tailwind the tech, it’s the ergonomics of the tool. Tailwind’s design loop encourages “let me add a div so I have a place for my CSS class”. I’ve usability tested and performed user research with many users needing assistive tools and I’ve used them myself as part of design. Basic HTML authoring is good practice for many reasons. |
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| ▲ | gjsman-1000 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But why would I spend any time mastering this skill when we have AI now? Disability software that uses both the markup and the on-screen visual for decision making is likely imminent and would render most of this no longer necessary. Claude Cowork is already doing navigation and web browsing by screenshot showing this is possible. | | |
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