Top all-time · #1030
Adrian Roselli
Personal blog · adrianroselli.comwebdesign
Adrian Roselli's personal blog at adrianroselli.com covers web and design. Since 2016, 65 different Hacker News readers have linked it 101 times, most often “AccessiBE will get you sued”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-09, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 34 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Adrian Roselli's accessibility blog for screen-reader and HTML/CSS pitfalls, such as details/summary and description lists, and for critiques of accessibility overlays like accessiBe.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- One commenter calls the post on never making read-only controls more accessible funny and says it illustrates the point. Another calls a Cistercian numerals SVG
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 34 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
alt: It’s me, but I’m made of polymers. I stand 4 inches tall, my joints are hinged, my face is a rictus of dull PVC. I am restrained against a cardboard wall by a transparent bubble of plastic holding me fast alongside divots bearing the tools of my trade —…
Most-linked posts?
- AccessiBE will get you sued4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-09-18
- I Don’t Care What Google or Apple or Whoever Did4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-03-27
- /2019/04/details-summary-are-not-insert-control-here.html4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-10-12
- The Ideal Bestest Base Font Size That Everyone Is Keeping a Secret, Es3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-13
- /2021/02/cistercian-svg.html2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-20
- Using CSS to Enforce Accessibility2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-25
- /2023/06/under-engineered-comboboxen.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-11-13
- Maybe Don't Rely on Google's "Modern Web Guidance"2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-26
- AudioEye has dropped its lawsuit against me2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-03
- OpenAI, ARIA, and SEO: Making the Web Worse2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-10-23
What Hacker News says?
You might find WAI's resources useful: https://www.w3.org/WAI/people-use-web/ And if you've come up with a cool idea for how to make something "more accessible", check whether Adrian Roselli wrote a "here's why you should never ever ever do this" article on the subject. https://adrianroselli.com/2024/11/avoid-read-only-controls.h... is funny and illustrates the point: > It’s weird to me that after I urged everyone n…
Comment linking /2021/10/blaming-screen-readers-red-flag.html
on “My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback”Submitted Accessibility: Don't Use Fake Bold or Italic in Social Media as a story · 64 points
HN discussionAccessiBe itself is rather shady [1], so it isn't really surprising to see them on the list. [1] https://adrianroselli.com/2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-sue...
Comment linking /2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-sued.html
on “I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts”Submitted My Cease and Desist from AudioEye as a story · 27 points
HN discussionThe issue is if you do want the element to appear in the tree. If the element has semantic meaning it can mess things up. Adrian Roselli is an accessibility expert who has done extensive testing and written up his findings: https://adrianroselli.com/2022/07/its-mid-2022-and-browsers-...
Comment linking /2022/07/its-mid-2022-and-browsers-mostly-safari-still-break-accessibility-via-display-properties.html
on “New layouts with CSS Subgrid”Submitted Stop Using ‘Drop-Down’ as a story · 23 points
HN discussionAlthough, as the article correctly points out, omitting the HTML tag is technically fine, there is one rather important argument for its inclusion: it can and should have a LANG attribute: <html lang=en-GB> It's not verbose after all, and IIUC may be omitted if and only if the document is served with corresponding information in `Content-Language:` HTTP header, but nasty (or rather annoying) things may happen if tha…
Comment linking /2015/01/on-use-of-lang-attribute.html
on “Write HTML Right”Submitted I Don’t Care What Google or Apple or Whoever Did as a story · 12 points
HN discussionNot choosing and inaccessible platform was the right thing to do. Hopefully this will make Automattic reconsider their priorities regarding web accessibility. Related write-up: https://adrianroselli.com/2020/09/gutenberg-accessibility-co...
Comment linking /2020/09/gutenberg-accessibility-costs-wordpress-the-w3c-work.html
on “On not choosing WordPress for the W3C redesign project”Submitted Using CSS to Enforce Accessibility as a story · 11 points
HN discussionThere are multiple reasons why details/summary are bad semantics, outlined in this article: https://adrianroselli.com/2019/04/details-summary-are-not-in...
Comment linking /2019/04/details-summary-are-not-insert-control-here.html
on “When going somewhere does a thing: on links and buttons”Submitted AudioEye has dropped its lawsuit against me as a story · 8 points
HN discussionA great little front-end project for generating these numerals: https://adrianroselli.com/2021/02/cistercian-svg.html
Comment linking /2021/02/cistercian-svg.html
on “Cistercian Numerals”Submitted So You Think You’ve Built a Good Infinite Scroll as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSadly it's now part of CSS. Thanks, Google. https://adrianroselli.com/2025/05/my-request-to-google-on-ac...
Comment linking /2025/05/my-request-to-google-on-accessibility.html
on “Should I Use a Carousel? (2013)”Submitted Maybe Don't Rely on Google's "Modern Web Guidance" as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThey're not even good for keeping lawsuits at bay. https://adrianroselli.com/2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-sue... The ADA lawsuit trolls who are quick to settle for money tend to go after smaller businesses presumably because they lack the resources to fight in court, to actually fix the problems, and because there are a lot more of them than large businesses.
Comment linking /2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-sued.html
on “For blind internet users, the fix can be worse than the flaws”Submitted You Can't Make Something Accessible to Everyone as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe TLD surprised me, I didn't know you could request one. The article I found that covers off on purchasing (leasing?) a TLD ironically used Google as an example. The article is from 2011. "The process itself may be relatively straightforward. ICANN will make applications available (get the May 2011 draft of the Applicant Guidebook) from January 12, 2012 through April 12, 2012, giving companies time to develop a ma…
Comment linking /2011/06/make-your-own-tld-i-want-bacon.html
on “The Keyword – New central source for news and stories about Google”Submitted Do Not Publish Your Designs on the Web with Figma Sites as a story · 4 points
HN discussionWhen I say I don't deal with overlays, and I refuse, I think they're a scourge. They want to help businesses by not getting sued, but they don't want to help us, the community, in any way. Audio eye threatened to sue someone who was in the process of exposing them, for defamation. https://adrianroselli.com/2023/02/audioeye-will-get-you-sued...
Comment linking /2023/02/audioeye-will-get-you-sued.html
on “Blind internet users struggle with error-prone AI aids”Submitted Maybe Don't Rely on Google's "Modern Web Guidance" as a story · 3 points
HN discussionYes, "alt" equivalent for "textual data representation" is ARIA role="img" with aria-label [0]: <span role="img" aria-label="[what assistive technologies should present]">[rendered content]</span> e.g. recommended for marking up obscure emoji [1]. Anyways, I see absolutely no reason why these projects (wavefont and linefont) build on top of plain ASCII (so the actual data sound as garbled nonsense) and not ligatures…
Comment linking /2016/12/accessible-emoji-tweaked.html
on “linefont: Font for rendering line chart data”Submitted The Browser Can Speak a Page as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNote that pure HTML and CSS implementations of tabs using <details> and <summary> fail to meet several important accessibility criteria [1]. While you can make something that visually appears to act as a set of tabs, building it accessibly unfortunately still requires JavaScript. [1] https://adrianroselli.com/2019/04/details-summary-are-not-in...
Comment linking /2019/04/details-summary-are-not-insert-control-here.html
on “Replacing JavaScript with Just HTML”Submitted OpenAI, ARIA, and SEO: Making the Web Worse as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSomeone's on it already (but maybe there's room for competition, if https://adrianroselli.com/2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-sue... is any indication): https://accessibe.com/accesswidget/artificial-intelligence
Comment linking /2020/06/accessibe-will-get-you-sued.html
on “I'm Betting on HTML”Submitted OpenAI, ARIA, and SEO: Making the Web Worse as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis has been tried and doesn't work, which doesn't mean it will never work in the future! There are a few companies offering solutions in this space, but they don't work, are often worse than the problems they're trying to solve and are a privacy disaster. The companies peddling them often engage in shady business practices, like falsely claiming that their overlays can protect you from ADA lawsuits[1], while actua…
Comment linking /2023/05/audioeye-is-suing-me.html
on “I'm Betting on HTML”Submitted Horizontal Scrolling Containers Are Not a Content Strategy as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
