[vunderba]

My biggest issue with LLM‑assisted webpages (Claude Code is especially egregious) is the lack of respect for basic web content accessibility guidelines.

The number of dark‑mode sites I’ve seen where the text (and subtext) are various shades of dark brown or beige is just awful. For reference, you want a contrast ratio between the text and background of at least ~4:1 to be on the safe side.

This isn't even that hard to fix - hell you can add the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to a skill.

https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker

[sowbug]

Were/Are human-generated side projects better in this respect?

[fenykep]

I assume not, but the emphasis here is that a new tool is homogenizing these projects and due to its scale it is more important that this homogenous output is up to a higher standard.

A hundred self-thought devs not implementing accessibility standards is a different problem than a school teaching 100 students lacking these standards in its curriculum.

[sen]

Yes, because a majority just use a CSS framework to save time, and all the big/common frameworks have put a fair bit of effort into their default colours and typography.

I would rather go back to when all side projects used Bootstrap than this purple-on-purple-with-glowing-purple mess of stuff we have now.

[stingraycharles]

It’s also interesting that you can tell which LLM provider was used to build certain sites, sometimes even model and version.

It’s insane though how many dark mode websites with purple there are right now, how come all LLMs converged on that style?

[toraway]

The "default" light-mode look of most popular UI frameworks wouldn't have that same issue unless you put a lot of time into customizing your own styling, which most side projects wouldn't bother with (unless that look and feel was the point of the project). There certainly would be poor UI decisions but more likely in layout/placement/navigation, which could still be problematic for accessibility but probably not in a "is this color scheme even readable" kind of way.

Plus given time constraints, they generally wouldn't try to cram huge amounts of tiny text into every visible inch of the page without some intentional reason to do so (using that somewhat hard to read console-ish font Claude seems to love as a default).

Maybe the dark mode/terminal font/high text density look presents as "cool looking" at first glance for one-shotting evals so they've all converged on it. But to OP's point, this seems like a solvable (or at least mitigable) issue if models or harnesses were concerned about it.

[classified]

It depends. As with everything else, those who know what they're doing and can make good looking and readable dark mode sites are the minority. Too many who think they're cool make squeaky white text on pitch black background and/or commit other sins. AI represents the average of the majority, not of the best.

[simonw]

I've genuinely had solid results from telling Claude "... and make sure it has good accessibility".

[vunderba]

I could see that. I’ve found that the more specificity you add to your prompt and less freedom you give Claude Code to kind of just “do its own thing”, the better your results will be.

FWIW, there’s also an official frontend-design skill for CC [1]. A while back I incorporated some of the more relevant guidance from WCAG into it [2].

[1] - https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/blob/main/plugins/...

[2] - https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag

[satvikpendem]

There are accessibility skills as well:

https://github.com/airowe/claude-a11y-skill

https://mcpmarket.com/tools/skills/accessibility-checker

[classified]

Yes, you have to enjoy micromanaging a machine to get somewhat acceptable results.

[conception]

Note guidance for 4.7 specifically calls out being more specific compared to 4.6. Though the system prompt seems to say the opposite.

Tldr I would expect different outcomes with 4.7 with not being specific.

[vunderba]

Honestly I'd heard so much seemingly conflicting information about the quality of 4.7 that I've got an override in CC to stay on Opus 4.6 (1 million token context) for the time being.

For reference, in the .claude/settings.local.json

  {
    "model": "claude-opus-4-6[1M]"
  }

[satvikpendem]

Something I've noticed when people complain about stuff like accessibility or other things that LLMs do "wrong", it really is a case of "you're holding it wrong." The LLM does indeed know how to do it right and it sometimes does so autonomously but when it doesn't, you can simply ask it to do so.

In other words, I've found people like the above to think of LLMs as fairly static, as if we couldn't change their behavior with a simple sentence, instead of complaining about it. It's strange, to me at least.

[debarshri]

I think this is a second order thing when you are building a side project.

[userbinator]

That basically shows the AI has learned what the average webpage looks like, and it's indeed horrible.

[mettamage]

If you have some good sources let me know, I'll turn it into a guide that Claude can read

[vunderba]

I use the W3 preliminary guidelines - you could try adapting them into a bespoke skill as a good start.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/preliminary

Another possibility (although I’ve never actually tried this myself) is an MCP server that someone built specifically to connect to Lighthouse, which includes accessibility testing as part of its benchmarks.

https://github.com/priyankark/lighthouse-mcp

[pk97]

I am the author of lighthouse-mcp. Plugging in a11y-mcp https://github.com/priyankark/a11y-mcp specifically for a11y and there are a few other variants of it from other authors as well.

I use these tools myself and they just build upon the awesome work from the open source community

[danielvaughn]

I think it's fine, so long as the intent is to refine the thing after you've validated the product idea and direction. There are a million things to optimize in web pages, and AI can't simply one-shot good decisions yet.

[krapp]

Show HN submissions aren't for launching your startup in stealth mode. You shouldn't need to "validate the product idea and direction." It's supposed to be fun, not business.

[victorbjorklund]

Honestly, my accessibility on my apps/websites is much better now with AI because you can just tell AI to do it (and run automated tests to validate it worked) vs not doing it at all for a small side project with 2 users.

[slibhb]

Just chiming in to say I don't care at all about accessibility and I find it bewildering that every thread sharing some project has a comment like this.

[willchis]

People assume that accessibility is all about some small minority of less abled people who can't "read good", but it's a broad category that affects all users. If you build following the guidelines then you end up with a quality product that can be used by people who stumbled upon it while doom-scrolling instead of enjoying their beach vacation. The best analogy I heard was about drop-kerbs/curb-cuts... people wonder why we're catering for a small minority of wheelchair users everywhere and then they have a kid (or wheel luggage from the airport) and realize how great they are.

[ryandrake]

Yup, accessibility is literally about broadening the population of people who can use your software. It's often associated with affordances for the less-abled, but that's just a subset of accessibility. I don't get the hostility! Just a guess but maybe 1 in 50 or so developers I've worked with in the past didn't just "not care" about accessibility but were outright hostile to it, as in affirmatively "We should not spend time working on this!" Bizarre.

[corndoge]

> I find it bewildering that every thread sharing some project has a comment like this.

Those of us who care that technology be accessible to as many people as possible, such as low vision users, find it relevant. You can ignore it if you wish.

[simonw]

Just chiming in to say that the idea someone would "not care at all about accessibility" (and openly state as much) is bewildering to me.

[firecall]

If nothing else, as a web developer, accessibility is an interesting challenge and satisfying to do well!

[assface]

> Just chiming in to say I don't care at all about accessibility

See Rawls 'Original Position' on why you should care: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position

[Barbing]

winrawl

[nottorp]

That's until you want to fill a form and find out it's dark grey text on a different dark grey background so you don't see what you're typing even with 20/20 sight :)

[furyofantares]

Consider not being bewildered that people care about things you don't care about.

[gostsamo]

I'm blind and accessibility is important to me. It is extremely disrespectful to see someone who just says "fuck you" and feels good about it. Please, at least consider that the world is bigger than you imagine and there is place for everyone in it and there is no need to be purposefully rude.

[Barbing]

If they happen to read this comment I would love to know, well it’s too invasive…

But, context of how they were raised

That comment was wild

[reaperducer]

I find it bewildering that every thread sharing some project has a comment like this.

Because Western society functions for the common good. We are not animals fighting for survival in the wilderness.

And because a web site not being accessible is a liability. Target was sued and had to pay millions for having your attitude.

[postalcoder]

Accessibility is a broad umbrella of features that enable a ton of really cool stuff for everybody, not just the disabled. Things like agentic computer use is only possible because of "accessibility".

[p1necone]

The same accessibility stuff that makes screen readers work well also makes automated UI tests simpler and less brittle too (correct aria roles, accessible names, label relationships etc).

[Barbing]

Accessibility is the only way we have access to any settings on the iPhone

[NewsaHackO]

I care about accessibility, but I agree with your sentiment. There is this recurring pattern people have when trying to detract from AI. They realize that saying they dislike AI for economic reasons is not going to garner any sympathy, so they try to hide behind some noble cause. At one point, it was about water use in datacenters. At another point, they become defenders for megacorporations' copyright. Now, they are trying the "AI doesn't cares about accessibility" angle. They are just trying to find some reason that sticks.

[satvikpendem]

As they say, everyone will eventually become disabled in some form or fashion. When your eyes go due to old age you'll be glad to still be able to use the internet.

[patorjk]

There's a whole industry around suing website owners who have websites that aren't accessible. It's kind of messed up. The WSJ did a story on it a while back: https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/small-business...

[pphysch]

Ironically this is perhaps the main motivation why a lot of companies force accessibility requirements internally. "We don't want an ADA lawsuit"

Now if only there were an ADA for website performance...

[inetknght]

> chiming in to say I don't care at all about accessibility

I hope you remember that well into your adult life.

Your hearing may be lost. Even if you could still read, the website doesn't offer an accurate transcription. You have to rely on someone else (or some other tech) to transcribe. You have to hope their hearing and language skills are good enough for an accurate transcription.

Your vision may be lost. Even if you could still hear, the website doesn't offer an accurate transcription. You have to rely on someone else (or some other tech) to transcribe. You have to hope their reading comprehension and language skills are good enough for an accurate transcription.

Your limbs may be lost. Some apps let you tab around. Some apps make it impossible to find a button until you hover your mouse. Some apps simply don't load unless you press some magic keystrokes. Good luck.

You brought this problem upon yourself, 30 years ago. You brought this problem upon others. People won't care about your problems. Why should they, when you didn't care about theirs?

> I find it bewildering that every thread sharing some project has a comment like this.

Accessibility is legally required and not difficult to add.

Would you deny service to black people? Islamic people? Gay people? Refusing to provide accessibility in your service is no different. You are actively discriminating in a way which could be illegal and certainly is unethical and amoral.

[reaperducer]

I hope you remember that well into your adult life.

It's not even about age.

You can twist an ankle playing basketball and need accessibility features like ramps and grab bars.

You can get hit in the eye by a bit of debris when your toy drone crashes, and need help reading a screen while it heals.

People who don't think they need accessibility only have to wait. Everyone gets their turn.

[SoftTalker]

> Would you deny service to black people? Islamic people? Gay people?

Bad analogy, as none of those traits require any accomodation in a website or app.

Not that I disagree with the premise. Almost everyone will eventually have trouble reading small, low contrast text or details on their phone or screen, if nothing else.

[IanCal]

This seems very weirdly exclusionary to me. Don’t you care at all about the users trying to use your site?

[CamperBob2]

Just chiming in to say I don't care at all about accessibility

You will.

[duskdozer]

Accessible sites are also faster, lighter, and more responsive sites. Accessibility is a pro for everyone.

[Barbing]

TIL slibhb will be young forever

[CrimsonRain]

I think accessibility is a really admirable thing and helpful to society (like ramps or parking). But stop shoving your wants on others when you can fix it on your own. Just write a chrome plugin using ai that adjusts css to set contrast ratio of your choice. Can even use a local llm to figure out replacement colors.

Accessibility that can be had on client side should not be a concern on server side.

[Barbing]

>stop shoving your wants

“Don’t have bad vision if you didn’t want to be technical!”

(came across that way)

[vunderba]

That's a really terrible option for the vast majority of people who simply lack that kind of tech savviness to be able to do it. And in my opinion, it's kind of selfish.

It also doesn't solve the issue if somebody is browsing your site on a mobile phone where the extension might not even work properly.

WCAG is not difficult - but it does require some modicum of effort.

[mathgeek]

Obligatory “have Claude write one for you” (in jest of course). All kidding aside, folks have always underestimated how much accessibility helps even those who don’t think they need it.

[vunderba]

Right? "Build your own extension" to fix a website's accessibility problems is the equivalent of telling somebody who is disabled to stop complaining about the lack of ramps when they can just modify their wheelchair with a jetpack.

[Barbing]

They might not need it

…right now, today. But they might consider “build a world for ‘old’ you”

[nozzlegear]

Our only recourse is to "stop shoving our wants on others," and instead make our own shit sandwich to fix someone else's shit sandwich?

[reaperducer]

stop shoving your wants on others when you can fix it on your own. Just write a chrome plugin using ai that adjusts css to set contrast ratio of your choice. Can even use a local llm to figure out replacement colors.

Stop shoving your wants on others when you can fix it yourself.

Just get some concrete and some lumber, and build that wheelchair ramp.

You can even hire a contractor to follow you around town all day building them as needed.

[CrimsonRain]

You are just being an ...

By your logic, when med-science will provide ways to fix legs, instead of fixing people's legs, we should be building wheelchair ramp all over the world...

I clearly said accessibility is good but what can be fixed on/around the source, should not be burdened on the site. Wheelchair is a perfect example of that.

You don't provide a wheelchair per site per person.

Imagine Chrome having accessibility toggle that sets this text contrast to whatever you prefer with one click/pre-settings. Now suddenly every site is compliant to your need.

More of the design accessibility should be option in the browser instead of the sites. That helps everyone better.

[8note]

as a comparison, i think the wheelchair itself is people making their own accessibility.

the wheelchair is not built into the site, and only requires a few hooks or the odd helping hand to work.

mapping back to software, and especially websites, your user agent is your user agent. it should render websites in the way you want to see them, regardless of what colours the designer chose.

an AI accessibility browser is more like a wheel chair than a ramp

[anthonypasq]

right, so in this analogy i should be legally required to have wheelchair accessibility in my house?

[spzb]

Not unless you invite the public in on a regular basis. Websites are available to the public - especially if you're trying to promote them on HN

[wredcoll]

"legal" is distinct from "moral" which is distinct from "polite".