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Comment by MavisBacon | Hacker News Reader

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>>Arghhhh! Your pages give me a headache, and/or eyestrain.

>Stop using the site immediately and consult a qualified ophthalmologist. Seriously, no static display on a modern and correctly adjusted VDU such as a computer monitor or phone screen should ever be inducing headaches or eyestrain in a healthy individual when properly used for reasonable time periods, and with sufficient breaks. If it is, you may have an underlying health condition which has otherwise gone un-noticed.

this statement basically implies that you have no intention of creating a website that is accessible to all users, and to all of those users with cognitive, vision, or neurological issues: "tough luck, go see a doctor!". Though I understand the goal here in terms of style and this page is indeed WCAG friendly enough in terms of some of the most obvious success criteria- this website is an objective nightmare for those with a variety of cognitive disabilities.

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I find it wildly ridiculous that we've more or less abandoned the practically simple idea of "the web is text, so just let people render the text how they want in their browsers."

Yet another reminder of the overblown nature of UX/UI in general. Given the current push for accessibility, seems like "make the text accessible" should be the goal above all else.

But the text is all there? Is there some sort of DRM embedded in the html that prevents you from rendering it how you'd like?

Browsers are dropping the ball. Yes, You can disable styles, and dig through settings to configure proper rendering. But browsers are 1. Defaulting to giving web designers control and 2. Are hiding the overrides deeper and deeper in settings.

The browser should default to your operating system’s default color scheme, text size, and font face, and no CSS. There should be a setting somewhere you can opt in to “let the web site decide these things.”

You can use a userstyle on the webpage. It works. It's quite straightforward actually.

They even offer ten themes and a chooser which is 9 themes more than 99% of websites.

I think most people are going to give up before they find that link in the footer, and regardless these themes still present accessibility issues, especially that static image background. I personally find even the "mostly monochrome" style very difficult to read through and I'm guessing I'm not the only one.

On this page, sure. On all pages, not so much.

No, explicitly on every page. It's a user agent level choice.

Time to hop over to Gemini.

The way a lot of people experience "the web" is not primarily text, but instead compressed screenshots of text. And screenshots of screenshots, ad infinitum.

I have to admit, there's a lot of crap on this page. But...

They do provide reasonable contrasts for all text on the page.

The text is a reasonable size.

Which is honestly better than most websites, especially technology sites.

That said, it would be nice if they supported readers though, or directly linked to their "gem text" (pure ascii) site. Putting blame on the browsers for the site's design choices is lazy.

Actually, a site that is structured well enough to be usable in text mode browsers is already more accessible to all users than most of the “beautifully” designed examples.

There's a different kind of incapacity involved: incapacity to control your device and software to have them suit your needs. The reply assumes that user has no other option except to drool and stare at what website author chose.

this generally isn't how designing with cognitive or neurological disabilities in mind works, we don't want the user to have to make adjustments in order to use a website as this only creates more friction. Not to mention the fact that we don't assume that the user is knowledgeable on how to make those adjustments, especially with the senior population which is a large segment of the cognitively impacted population who are using the internet.

unlike with the blind or low vision population, those with cognitive and neuro issues often aren't aware of assistive tech, often aren't familiar with the accessibility settings on their devices, and sometimes aren't even aware of the disability they are dealing with and are undiagnosed.

The users will never be knowledgeable if no one is teaching them anything. They also won't make adjustments if the ability to adjust itself is removed because It's Better This Way™.

I am aware that the site is original for the sake of originality (slanted divs look awful on my system, too). However, the advice to stop and find out what is wrong instead of just keep doing what everyone is doing is pretty sane.

same thing for all these apps/websites with dark mode only.

spotify, steam, epic and many more.

big diff between profit/trend driven design and philosophical/practical design.

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