Nostr notes by Lea Verou, PhD

If one user gets it wrong, it might be them. If multiple users ...

2026-07-01T01:38:15Z

If one user gets it wrong, it *might* be them.
If multiple users get it wrong, it's *definitely* you.

— Ancient UX proverb

Just finished rewatching The Queen’s Gambit. Damn, what an ...

2026-06-26T18:40:07Z

Just finished rewatching The Queen’s Gambit.

Damn, what an absolute MASTERPIECE.
Incredible cinematography, pacing, soundtrack, casting, acting, everything.

But my favorite part is how it rejects all modern storytelling tropes we’ve been trained on.

[1/4] 🧵👇

TIL crows only look black to us — they’re actually very ...

2026-05-02T16:39:59Z

TIL crows only *look* black to us — they’re actually very colorful in ways human eyes are unable to perceive. 🤯

Remember that next time people can’t see your “colors”.

Some colors just require different eyes.

Technology itself is a process of abstracting away how stuff ...

2026-02-06T07:45:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…jvzu
_________________________

Technology itself is a process of abstracting away how stuff works so you don’t have to understand it. I have no clue how my refrigerator works for example. I suspect safety will increase over time. We’re still in the early days.

Also, wow, you can get them to regurgitate entire books?! I still can’t get ChatGPT to transcribe the notes from one verse of one song because copyrights?! 🫠

I know what you mean, I still use LLMs in a much more incremental ...

2026-02-06T07:41:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…uns8
_________________________

I know what you mean, I still use LLMs in a much more incremental fashion than what they’re capable of and tend to use lower levels of abstraction than most people in general. But I do think that this is a me issue and it necessarily the best ROI. Intellectually, I’m fascinated by the potential they open up, even if I haven’t fully tapped into it yet.

I’m conflicted on the IP theft issue, and don’t feel I have ...

2026-02-06T07:32:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…yrrq
_________________________

I’m conflicted on the IP theft issue, and don’t feel I have enough data for an informed opinion. Here’s my current thinking: When a human reads a book and that influences the way they think or write, we don’t think they’re stealing IP, right? Of course there’s a threshold; if they get *too* close then it is stealing. But the training is not IP theft by itself.

how does the former differ from the latter? Both are using your ...

2026-02-06T07:20:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…6gu7
_________________________

how does the former differ from the latter? Both are using your natural language input to generate code. The more precise you are, the more control you have over it.

Why not? The logical progression of this is natural language. If ...

2026-02-05T18:03:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…95kz
_________________________

Why not? The logical progression of this is natural language.

If you see it as a spectrum from machine code to natural language, every major abstraction shift (2GL, 3GL, 4GL) got us a tiny bit closer to NL. NL has always been the ultimate vision, we just didn't think we could get there.

It’s also common for programmers to dislike PLs and UIs for non-programmers. It’s a tradeoff between precision and control. Notices struggle with precision, trained programmers with loss of control.

The viewpoint may be extreme, but not in the way you think. I did ...

2026-02-05T17:51:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…azxs
_________________________

The viewpoint may be extreme, but not in the way you think.

I did my PhD on end-user programming.
It was before AI. The field centered around:
1. Designing more learnable & highly abstracted PLs
2. Designing UIs to allow novices to compose or understand code.

It was very incremental. Any syntax (1) excludes many. UIs were limited/ing (2).

The vision of most EUP researchers was close to what is "vibe coding" today. Hard not to be excited it arrived so much sooner than we thought!

I have not sided with anyone. My opinions are my own and I do not ...

2026-02-03T19:29:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…kghn
_________________________

I have not sided with anyone. My opinions are my own and I do not subscribe to the trend towards extreme polarization on this.

You are free to be disappointed, of course. I’ve also been disappointed in how many people I respect see threat where I see huge potential.

Thankfully, I have the maturity to disagree with people and continue respecting them.

Also, not sure what you mean with the present perfect there, unless your definition of "the past" encompasses "last week". 😅

[3/3] The turning point was when compilers became so good, you ...

2026-01-31T21:53:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…7u3h
_________________________

[3/3]

The turning point was when compilers became so good, you almost never had to *look* at the generated code at all. You could entirely live in this new level of abstraction.

We’re not quite there yet with LLMs, which explains the current resistance from experienced SWEs. But if history is any guide, we almost certainly will get there, soon.

What a fascinating time to be alive!

[2/3] But nearly every argument against LLM-assisted programming ...

2026-01-31T21:52:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…x9kg
_________________________

[2/3]

But nearly every argument against LLM-assisted programming has appeared before.

Assembly programmers in the 50s said the same things about 3GLs:
“Real programmers write assembly” they’d cry.
High-level languages were “inefficient, buggy, and produced slower, bloated code” compared to hand-optimized assembly code.
“You can’t trust what you didn’t write!”

And they were not wrong — at first. Early compilers did produce worse code, and debugging machine-generated output was miserable.

It is clear that LLMs are the new generation of PL, the biggest ...

2026-01-31T21:51:30Z

It is clear that LLMs are the new generation of PL, the biggest SWE revolution since assembly→3GLs.

The parallels & differences are fascinating.

Take interpreted vs compiled. Previously a property of the *language*, now a property of the *program*.
1. Interpreted = Store prompt, re-run each time (non-deterministic)
2. Compiled = Use the LLM to generate a 4GL program (deterministic)

Some use cases call for 1, others for 2, others for a hybrid. Choosing well will become a core SWE skill.

[1/3]

How many of you have used `in srgb` in color-mix()? (specifically ...

2025-12-06T22:32:14Z

How many of you have used `in srgb` in color-mix()?
(specifically srgb, not srgb-linear or anything else)

A: Never used color-mix() / I don't write CSS / No idea what you're talking about 🤷‍♂️
B: I have done this and still do, why? 🤔
C: I have done this in the past, but now I know better 😬
D: Yikes, I would never 🧐

If your company uses web technologies but has never tried to ...

2025-11-08T05:47:05Z

If your company uses web technologies but has never tried to solve pain points by fixing the web platform rather than working around the issues, why is that?

🔥 New blog post! Covering, among other things: - Why making ...

2025-09-29T17:01:42Z

🔥 New blog post!

Covering, among other things:

- Why making simple things easy and complex things possible is not enough
- How to maximize your UI’s signal-to-noise ratio
- Why you can’t uncover friction through user feedback
- How to prioritize user needs

https://lea.verou.me/blog/2025/user-effort/

I have rewritten this post at least 10 times in the past year, so I’m almost in disbelief that I finally managed to hit Publish. 🫣

Hope it resonates!

Computing some preliminary analysis over the #StateOfHTML pain ...

2025-09-22T13:16:58Z

Computing some preliminary analysis over the #StateOfHTML pain points data and some um, …interesting patterns are emerging 🙃

This is excellent. 👌🏼 “Open source, the thing that drives ...

2025-09-01T09:50:47Z

This is excellent. 👌🏼

“Open source, the thing that drives the world, the thing Harvard says has an economic value of $8.8 trillion.
Most of it is one person.

And […] not one of those single person projects have the proper amount of resources they need. If you want to talk about possible risks to your supply chain, a single maintainer that’s grossly underpaid and overworked.”

Yuuup. Baffling how so many companies depend on open source software without funding it, ever.

https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/08-oss-one-person

🚀 The #StateOfHTML 2025 survey is now open! ➡️ Take it ...

2025-07-22T15:16:38Z

🚀 The #StateOfHTML 2025 survey is now open!

➡️ Take it now: https://survey.devographics.com/en-US/survey/state-of-html/2025/?source=leaverou

Spending time to fill these out thoughtfully is an investment into your craft, as browsers are using the results to make prioritization decisions.

You don't have to do it in one go (or even in one device).

Blog post with more background: https://lea.verou.me/blog/2025/state-of-html/

Big thanks to Sacha Greif (npub1m3q…ag79) Dmitry Sharabin (npub1h3w…n8wc) Kadir Topal (npub1x8w…wkz3) Philip Jägenstedt (npub1n5g…9gt3)!

#StateOfHTML2025

Help me settle a debate: How often do you edit SVG markup by ...

2025-07-06T20:21:38Z

Help me settle a debate: How often do you edit SVG markup by hand?

Things that count:
✅ Hand editing output from graphics editors (e.g. Illustrator)
✅ Hand-editing SVG you copied from elsewhere (e.g. icons)
✅ Using low-level abstractions (e.g. the SVG DOM) to dynamically modify or output SVG

Things that don't count:
❌ Copying and pasting an SVG icon without editing anything
❌ Including an SVG file whose markup you haven't touched on a page
❌ Generating SVG via high-level abstractions like D3

I keep finding myself rewording text to remove em dashes, because ...

2025-06-13T13:36:22Z

I keep finding myself rewording text to remove em dashes, because some people use them as a proxy to filter out AI-generated content.

Mute em dashes, block AI bots — and typography nerds.

What surreal times we live in.

I LOVE this …Chart of Shame on https://webstatus.dev/stats ...

2025-05-29T20:26:13Z

I LOVE this …Chart of Shame on https://webstatus.dev/stats
“Features missing in only one browser” 😍.

Even lets you click on individual data points and see which features each browser is holding the Web back from.

Hopefully it will motivate implementations of these features!

🚀 Launching style-observer: A bulletproof, production-ready ...

2025-02-12T11:09:36Z

🚀 Launching style-observer: A bulletproof, production-ready library for observing CSS property changes in JS.

Developed with the help of my apprentice Dmitry Sharabin (npub1h3w…n8wc) over the last month, to scratch possibly one of my longest-standing itches.

Made possible by the pioneering work of Bramus (on vacation 🏝️) (npub159n…rz7e), Artem Godin, Jane Ori 💚 CSS Runner 👩‍💻 (npub1zv2…tzhy) and many others!

Blog post: https://lea.verou.me/blog/2025/style-observer/
Docs: https://observe.style

I just noticed that Adobe Illustrator has a dedicated setting for ...

2025-02-11T09:24:10Z

I just noticed that Adobe Illustrator has a dedicated setting for …the color of the Share button in the title bar and I just can’t stop imagining possible scenarios that led to this being added to the product. 🥲

Yup, this is a low-level feature that makes things possible ...

2025-01-22T19:15:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…5erd
_________________________

Yup, this is a low-level feature that makes things *possible* that currently are not possible, and gives us more time to figure out how to make the common cases *easy*.

That said, I was trying to keep the code small — in real use cases you'd probably use intermediate variables to make it more readable.

😍 PSA: ident() is an upcoming CSS feature I’m incredibly ...

2025-01-22T18:52:40Z

😍 PSA: ident() is an upcoming CSS feature I’m incredibly excited about and you're about to be too.

It will allow you to compose CSS variable names from other variables, making code like the one in the pic possible.

Spec: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-values-5/#ident
Proposal (by Bramus (on vacation 🏝️) (npub159n…rz7e)): https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/9141

🎉 OMG OMG OMG Chrome is shipping CSS attr() for every ...

2025-01-16T22:08:10Z

🎉 OMG OMG OMG Chrome is shipping CSS attr() for every property!!! 🎉
I’ve been asking for this for over a decade!! w00t!!! 🤩

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/advanced-attr

🚀 [Case study] Context Chips in Survey Design: “Okay, but ...

2024-12-28T04:34:29Z

🚀 [Case study] Context Chips in Survey Design: “Okay, but how does it feel?”

The story of how a weird little UI to collect sentiment alongside survey responses defied constraints and triumphed over skepticism through #usability testing.

This is about one of the novel UIs I designed when leading #StateOfHTML 2023 — the one I’m most proud of. 💙

I’ve been meaning to write this for over a year, finally found the time during this winter break!

https://lea.verou.me/blog/2024/context-chips/

I’ve spent some time on a TypeScript codebase this week¹. ...

2024-12-08T01:20:37Z

I’ve spent some time on a TypeScript codebase this week¹.

I’ve now spent more time fighting against TS than writing out logic.

Corollary: I would've been 2x as productive without it.

Of all these warnings, how many helped me fix real bugs? None.

The original vision of TS was brilliant: Optional type hints get you the benefits of type checking, without getting in the way when you don't need them.

But at this point, TypeScript is no less painful than Java.

¹ I prefer JSDoc+TS imports myself.

This is true across all languages, from CSS to C++. They only ...

2024-12-06T21:57:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…w0x5
_________________________

This is true across all languages, from CSS to C++. They only differ wrt how well they allow you to express your intent.

I guess in some ways, this is the common sociological pattern where the descriptive eventually becomes prescriptive ¹. But damn, in sociology it takes years or decades, not a few keystrokes. 😅

¹ Example: "Oh, many women seem to like kids. I guess that means ALL women MUST have kids"

The idea behind prefer-const is well intentioned: if you plan to ...

2024-12-06T21:57:46Z

The idea behind prefer-const is well intentioned: if you plan to never reassign a variable, make it a constant to declare your intent upfront, reducing cognitive load.

But intent is crucial here. Good code expresses *intent*, not coincidence.

Yet linters try to enforce this rule by looking at the current snapshot of the code and asserting that if a variable currently _happens_ to not be reassigned, it means you MUST formalize this as a restriction so that it can never be reassigned! 🙃

I’ve said it before but hoped I’d be wrong. My main worry ...

2024-11-06T04:37:53Z

I’ve said it before but hoped I’d be wrong. My main worry about #election2024 was that a big % of Americans would simply never vote for a woman, no matter what.

They'd rather let a senile fascist run the country because they just can’t stomach the idea of a woman running it.

Most won’t even admit this to themselves. They'll assure you that they would absolutely vote for "the right woman". But when the possibility becomes less abstract, no actual female candidate is ever good enough for them.

I wrote some thoughts on the web components debate (lord help ...

2024-10-01T18:29:20Z

I wrote some thoughts on the web components debate (lord help me).

IMO WCs and frameworks currently have different value propositions. They are not competitors; there is space in our toolchains for both.

So how about we stop fighting and go make awesome sh!t? 🚀

https://lea.verou.me/blog/2024/wcs-vs-frameworks/

Lots of hate against web components from framework authors the ...

2024-09-29T02:49:09Z

Lots of hate against web components from framework authors the last two days.

Those of us who have been around the block smirk knowingly, as we’ve seen this play out a few times.

Case in point: huge resistance against CSS when it was first introduced in the 90s. Tables for layout had so much better ergonomics!

The pushback lasted until the mid 00s when it went from “this will never work” to “this was clearly the solution all along” almost overnight.

And the rest, as they say, is history. 🙂

🚀 I’ll soon be starting a new role as Product Lead at a ...

2024-09-07T14:26:15Z

🚀 I’ll soon be starting a new role as Product Lead at a company very close to the Web, with a fantastic culture around design, usability, open source, and work-life balance.

It took a while to find a role that literally ticked all of my boxes, and I’m so *incredibly* excited. 🤩

💬 Quiz: Can you guess which company it is? 😀

(I’ll announce it properly next week, but meanwhile let’s have some fun 😅)

💡Hint: It’s a small company (<100 folks) but if you build web UIs you definitely know it.

Most developers treat the tools and languages they use as fixed ...

2024-08-27T13:52:52Z

Most developers treat the tools and languages they use as fixed and some will go to great lengths to defend their design as if their specs were handed down by gods on stone tablets.

I wonder what causes the mindset shift that everything is malleable and ever-evolving: the libraries/frameworks you use, but also the languages & platforms.

It’s not experience; I’ve had this mindset from the start — it’s what got me into standards. I wonder if it correlates with certain personality traits more.

One of life’s big mysteries: Do sessions in visa application ...

2024-08-21T21:55:58Z

One of life’s big mysteries: Do sessions in visa application and banking websites time out so fast because of some misguided notion of security, or because they were made by sadistic bastards who enjoy human suffering? 🤔

I guess we’ll never know…

npm link is a textbook example of a great idea rendered ...

2024-08-03T19:20:17Z

npm link is a textbook example of a great idea rendered near-unusable by poor design (or implementation? Hard to tell).

The purpose is clear: Link to certain deps locally, so you can modularize without having to get every change through npm or make edits.

But it silently stops working and modules fall back to installed versions seemingly at random.

I have yet to build a consistent mental model about when exactly this happens. At this point, I can't even confidently assert it's deterministic!

Btw I should also say, the UI is gorgeous. I think it may be ...

2024-08-02T12:43:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…n8dy
_________________________

Btw I should also say, the UI is *gorgeous*. I think it may be one of the reasons I’m still in the app despite a fair bit of confusion. 😅

(this is known as the Aesthetic Usability Effect, see https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ )

When you’ve been working on something for a while it's very ...

2024-08-02T12:40:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…nhm2
_________________________

When you’ve been working on something for a while it's very easy to forget that concepts that are super basic and obvious to you are not to new users. 😊

Even a small note with a link to the relevant docs in each of these sections would do *wonders*. At least the user would have somewhere to go, whereas now it's a dead end.

And if there's a quick start guide, definitely direct people there when they start!

(hope this is not coming across as complaining, just giving UX ...

2024-08-02T12:36:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…llvk
_________________________

(hope this is not coming across as complaining, just giving UX feedback as a means to give back)

It's entirely possible these are difficult concepts to ...

2024-08-02T12:35:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…xtu7
_________________________

It's entirely possible these are difficult concepts to explain with a single sentence tip text in the UI, but perhaps it could _point_ to the relevant section in the docs.

Right now, there's not even a link to the docs *anywhere* in the UI. I had to poke around quite a lot to find it (eventually clicked the logo at the bottom left which took me to the homepage, which *did* have a link to Docs).

Similarly, there is a "Schemas" item in the menu, which ...

2024-08-02T12:30:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…t2nu
_________________________

Similarly, there is a "Schemas" item in the menu, which brings this up (Pic 1). Nothing tells me what a schema *is* in this context. Clicking "Create one" brings up the dialog in pic 2 but I still have no clue what I'm looking for and why.

In general, don’t assume people will look up docs if something ...

2024-08-02T12:29:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…dpra
_________________________

In general, don’t assume people will look up docs if something is confusing, especially if not linked.

E.g. another example. I have no idea what to do here and the UI does not point me anywhere to help me figure it out. "Add new collection" just brings up the dialog in Pic 2 to add a JSON file, but I still have no clue what a collection *is*, what it does, what it will be used for, what JSON file I should be looking for!

There is no link to the authentication docs from the note in that ...

2024-08-02T12:10:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…rdnd
_________________________

There is no link to the authentication docs from the note in that dialog.

I know how to get the access token, just not how to enter it in ...

2024-08-02T11:20:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…wwd2
_________________________

I know how to get the access token, just not how to enter it in mattrbld (npub1nx8…kl34)
Dmitry Sharabin (npub1h3w…n8wc) also suggested using it instead of the password and it worked, I would've never thought!

@npub1dau…34ue Hey, thanks for building @npub1nx8…kl34! I was ...

2024-08-02T11:01:09Z

Amadeus Maximilian (npub1dau…34ue) Hey, thanks for building mattrbld (npub1nx8…kl34)! I was trying to give it a try today and …I’m kinda stuck in step 1.

HOW to set up an access token? The only fields there are username and password!

I’m using @npub1f8f…ed9x and maintaining content in Markdown ...

2024-08-01T13:54:03Z

I’m using Eleventy 🎈 v3.1.0-beta.1 (npub1f8f…ed9x) and maintaining content in Markdown files on GitHub.

I want to collaborate on said MD files, with the option of a split view (MD on one side, rendered page on another) with my *own* config.

It seems like a basic use case, yet one no tool can accommodate!

Collaborative MD editors all interpret a hardcoded flavor of MD, no plugins. Can't remember when I last used Markdown *without* plugins!

And headless CMSes revolve around connecting JSON data to templates, not editing MD.

Currently, Disqus is failing on any website that uses any of the ...

2024-07-31T12:58:55Z

Currently, Disqus is failing on any website that uses any of the many CSS color formats that shipped in the last decade. Yup, not being able to parse a color means *their entire widget* does not get included, and comments are not shown.

You cannot anticipate everything. This is why it’s important to design systems that are resilient and fault tolerant. Expect the unexpected, and handle it gracefully.