@noracodes i do think that if you are building a website which people are choosing to view instead of needing to view, you can assume a generally slightly higher level of technical proficiency and lean more on user tools (most people who view any website i create, for example, will be people who voluntarily enjoy using the internet)

accessibility requirements increase the less of a choice someone has in accessing your information. technical documentation needs to be readable to anyone who might need to use it. government resources need to be accessible to people who have never used a computer before. knowing your audience is important

i wish the web was in a place where users had more control over how things are displayed, although we’re getting better with things like CSS media queries. i wish tools like reader view were more robust and customizable and people were more versed in using them. it’s annoying to me that old patterns like named stylesheets have fallen by the wayside, so everybody has to implement their own stylesheet picker from scratch.

i do also think that design is a form of human expression, and a diversity of designs reflects the diversity of human experience. for personal websites, i think sometimes the scales tip towards authentically representing YOUR experience over being accessible to everyone else’s. but again, knowing the content and your audience helps you make decisions here.

i think having choices is good :). i wish more of the choices could be picked by the user, instead of having to be implemented by the content author