This is a redress of my 2019 post Link + Disclosure Widget Navigation, except (as the title implies), I’ve modified it to use native HTML popovers instead of ARIA or HTML disclosure widgets. Popover has the benefit of using appropriate HTML structure and semantics while removing the need for scripting…
Chrome 150 has landed support for focusgroup, a feature proposed by Open-UI and not yet in WHATWG HTML as anything more than a feature request. Open-UI has outsized representation from Google and Microsoft folks, so it’s no surprise Chrome would implement it first. “FOCUS!” by Metro Centric, CC BY 2.0;…
I should clarify that I am not talking about carousels. That said, because users often consider horizontal scrolling containers to be carousels, I will be talking about carousels. Also, this post is written by a monolingual American. While I discuss localization issues, there’s no way I can get into all…
TL;DR: Unless you have user testing results saying otherwise, maybe put a check-all checkbox outside the table. The rest of this post is an awkward mash-up of my posts Don’t Turn a Table into an ARIA Grid Just for a Clickable Row and Check-All / Expand-All Controls with a little…
TL;DR: blanket statements about where to put focus when opening a modal dialog are wrong, including this one. This post is meant to help you, an intelligent and thoughtful and empathetic reader, figure out where you should set focus. The scenarios are non-exhaustive. Messages I’m artificially breaking these into three…
In 2017 I wrote Tweaking Text Level Styles (terrible name in retrospect) and I made regular updates over the years. Stop reading it. Remove it from your bookmarks. Unlink it from your posts. Print it onto paper and then burn it. Demo <mark> <del> <ins> <s> Wrap-up The conclusions and…
It’s weird to me that after I urged everyone not to disable form controls, a bunch of them decided that making them read-only was somehow better. But here we are. What’s in the box? Photo by Michael Heiss, no edits, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. HTML The readonly attribute is only allowed…
There are plenty of plug-ins, libraries, and tutorials that will add an “estimated reading time” visual cue to your site. There are also browser extensions for users. Most use JavaScript and CSS to calculate based on word count and viewport position. All require more work on the part of the…
Remy Sharp asked on the Mastodon about pagination as he found it in the W3C Design System: <nav aria-label=”pagination” class=”l-cluster pagination”> <ul class=”pagination__list”> <li><a href=”path/to/page”>Previous <span class=”visuallyhidden”>page</span></a></li> <li><a class=”pagination__list__first” href=”path/to/page”><span class=”visuallyhidden”>page</span> 1<span class=”visuallyhidden”> (first page)</span></a></li> <li><a class=”ellipsis”>…</a></li> <li><a href=”path/to/page”><span class=”visuallyhidden”>page</span> 6</a></li> <li><a href=”path/to/page”><span class=”visuallyhidden”>page</span> 7</a></li> <li><a href=”#” aria-label=”page 8″ aria-current=”page”>8</a></li>…
TL;DR: Be careful when using the word grid on its own. Be certain you have chosen the term that accurately describes the pattern you want. If this post looks familiar to you, that is because it is essentially a redress of my 2023 post Be Careful Using ‘Menu’. It is…
If you want something done right, post it wrong. In the long history of the innertubes, if you ask for help with code you typically won’t get much of a response. But if you post code and assert it is ideal and perfect and an immutable reflection of your pristine…
Just another usability and accessibility pro telling authors not to do the thing they continue to do. It’s Ok to Disable Buttons There are plenty of cases where you want to disable a button until a user takes a conscious action to enable it, such as when launching nuclear missiles.…