I think Bruce is onto something here:
It seems to me that browsers could do more to protect their users. Browsers are, after all, user agents that protect the visitor from pop-ups, malicious sites, autoplaying videos and other denizens of the underworld. They should also protect users against nausea and migraines, regardless of whether the developer thought to (or had the tools available to).
So, I propose that browsers should never respect
scroll-behavior: smooth;if a user prefers reduced motion, regardless of whether a developer has set the media query.
SPAs were a clever solution to a temporary limitation. But that limitation no longer exists.
Use modern server rendering. Use actual pages. Animate with CSS. Preload with intent. Ship less JavaScript.
I love this kind of spelunking into the history of why things are they way they are on the web!
Here, Detective Chief Inspector Suzanne tries to get to the bottom of why every browser has eight pixels of margin applied to the body element in the user-agent stylesheet.
I knew that custom properties don’t work in media queries but I had no idea that there was such a thing as custom media queries, which effectively do the same thing.
But this is not implemented in any browser. Boo! This would be so useful! If browser makers can overcame the technical hurdles with container queries, I’m sure they can deliver custom media queries.
It would be nice to be able to animate the transition between pages if we want to on the web without resorting to hacks or full-blown architecture choices to achieve it.
Amen, Chris, amen!
The danger here is that you might pick a single-page app just for this ability, which is what I mean by having to buy into a site architecture just to achieve this.
This is a really interesting take on the intersection between accessibility and progressive enhancement (which I always felt was there, but this expresses it well):
Accessibility aims to optimize an experience across a spectrum of user capabilities. Progressive enhancement aims to optimize an experience across a spectrum of user agent capabilities.
Indeed, if you broaden the definition of “user agent” to include a user’s physiology, I think the concepts become nearly identical.
Browser are user agents, not developer agents.
A presentation at An Event Apart Boston 2018.
Having fun with view transitions and scroll-driven animations.