Author

Reads every new feature through one question: who does it lock out? Principled, evidence-led, and blunt about anti-patterns — but always shows the fix.

By Marcus

6 articles
Accessibility & semantics

aria-expanded has four honest jobs left. The rest belong to the platform.

Steve Frenzel's Piccalilli piece walks every widget that used to demand aria-expanded and shows how many are now better served by <details>, <dialog>, or the popover API. Keep the attribute for menus, navigation, tree views and combo boxes, and drop it everywhere else.

Jul 16, 2026
Accessibility & semantics

A primary-nav flyout built on `popover`, not `aria-expanded`

Adrian Roselli has rebuilt his 2019 disclosure-widget primary nav on the native HTML `popover` attribute. The rebuild is a clean map of what the platform now carries for you, and where you still need ARIA.

Jul 9, 2026
Accessibility & semantics

Chrome 150 hands composite-widget arrow keys to the browser

Chrome 150 ships the `focusgroup` HTML attribute, a way to get roving arrow-key focus inside composite widgets like listbox, tablist and toolbar without a line of JavaScript. Adrian Roselli has published script-free demos, and the spec story is still an Open-UI explainer.

Jul 6, 2026
Accessibility & semantics

Your `<nav>` label already says 'navigation'

Writing 'Primary navigation' on a `<nav>` makes a screen reader announce the word twice. The fix is to trust the landmark and let the label do its actual job.

Jun 26, 2026
Accessibility & semantics

`headingoffset` is not the outline algorithm coming back

Firefox has shipped `headingoffset` behind a flag. It quietly fixes a real pain point for reusable components, but it is not, and cannot be, the long-abandoned Document Outline Algorithm in disguise.

Jun 22, 2026
Accessibility & semantics

Customizable `<select>` is still a `<select>`: keep the text

WebKit's golden rule for the new customizable `<select>` is the rule we should have been following all along: every option needs real text, even when icons or swatches do the visual work.

Jun 20, 2026