Lea Verou, PhD

Honored to be awarded “Pathfinder for Standards” by @openjsf.org at #jsconf 💛 Blurb made me blush ☺️: “Lea is a rare person who has strong academic credentials, has helped create rigorous industry standards, but always focuses on the needs of real world users […]” Rest at openjsf.org/blog/javascr...

I get it how these skeuomorphic Logic Pro UIs may help seasoned pros used to the hardware counterparts, but they are an *atrocious* UX for someone learning this stuff digital-first. 😕 I wonder when we’ll cross the threshold where most of its TAM is digital-first… (Yes, I’m having a fun weekend 😀)

Yesterday, the CSSWG accepted my proposal for mesh gradients and diffusion curve gradients! Want to make gradients like this natively in CSS? Well, we've started the work on it. It's coming! Here's the Explainer: github.com/w3c/csswg-dr...

@cassidoo.co Another one for the GitHub wishlist: hierarchical counts of +/- loc in the file list. Currently we get this for the whole PR and for individual files, but nothing in between. I'd love being able to see at a glance how much of the changes are tests and how much src.

🔥 New blog post: The best way to use icons in Web UIs What if I told you, you could use CSS to *insert* and *tweak* icons without touching any HTML? And that you can manage them alongside your other design tokens? lea.verou.me/blog/2026/ic...

What if there was a Web Components conference?? @stuffbreaker.bsky.social and I are teaming up to get a little more serious about the idea of getting one together. We want to gather data on if there is interest in the community forms.gle/ZGqtYGj7V6q8... Please fill out and share to anyone!

Modern Web Guidance v0.0.192 is out. With it your coding agent now knows how to: • build SMS one-time-code forms that autofill (WebOTP) • make dark mode toggles that follow the OS • honor the OS text size setting • reduce INP and lazy-load video/audio • feature-detect CSS at-rules with @supports

Link Parameters is the thing that gives you the ability to style embedded external SVGs. Something many have wanted to do for a long time! If you want to show your support of this, give these 2 issues a thumbs-up and comment: 💬 github.com/web-platform... 💬 github.com/web-platform...

See which features are missing (or not fully implemented) in specific browsers and go upvote/comment on their issues Chrome: developer-signals.dev?browser=chro... Edge: developer-signals.dev?browser=edge... Firefox: developer-signals.dev?browser=fire... Safari: developer-signals.dev?browser=safa...

GitHub.com has fully moved off CSS-in-JS to CSS Modules, resulting in 55% less server-side render time and 25% faster component init. https://github.blog/engineering/architecture-optimization/improving-site-performance-by-shipping-more-css/

This is exciting. 😍 CSS Mixins and Functions are features that will transform how CSS is written and shared and this makes them usable, today! I'd use these via `@import url(…) supports(not at-rule(@function));` otherwise you get no benefit in browsers that support functions/mixins natively.

This is so good. “Think about it this way: when the steam shovel was invented, digging didn’t stop. We just stopped using hand shovels and started building skyscrapers. The scale of what we could create exploded.” h/t @svgees.us

Entry and exit animations in a card-based UI can break if card or screen dimensions change. Newer CSS animation properties can help, but not all browsers support them. We gave a coding agent the same prompt twice: once unaided, once with Modern Web Guidance installed 🧵

🗼 Live from the @tc39.es plenary in Tokyo: Just resolved to advance github.com/tc39/proposa... to Stage 2.7 Soon, export * from "foo" will also re-export default. 🤯 Chuckling to myself thinking how this would have likely been a non-starter in a more compat risk-averse committee (e.g. WHATWG). 🙃

v0.0.191 of Modern Web Guidance is out and it's a big one! *16* new guides covering: web components by @castastrophe.bsky.social Cross-Origin Storage by @tomayac.com security by @rowan.fyi UI and PWA by @jamessw.com and @sturobson.com Wasm by @sbc100.bsky.social github.com/GoogleChrome...

My favorite part of being in Japan is the breakfast. ❤️ You can find good Japanese food outside Japan, but I’ve never seen Japanese breakfast outside Japan. Highlight: I tried Shiokara for the first time! And I liked it! 🤤 (I do tend to like slimy salty umami things, so not a big surprise, heh)

How you know you’re in Tokyo: you’re gently rocked by an earthquake in the middle of the night, followed by an announcement that the building is earthquake resistant and to “please continue to relax” in like 10 different languages, played 3x. As if my jetlag hadn’t woken me up sufficiently… 🫠

*Rubs hands* this is going to be fun 😀

@cassidoo.co Hey, a while back you were asking about GitHub improvements. I wish I could exclude comment changes from PRs so I could get a sense of the extent of the change. Also, to temporarily exclude certain files or paths (e.g. docs, tests), for the same reason.

“These five paragraphs of Claude’s PR description could have been a sentence” is a the new “this meeting could have been an email”

If someone as brilliant as Jane has to post a cry for help, something is very wrong with the world.

The dread and panic before a new talk. 😰 It never gets easier 😬

Out of all the web components I’ve ever made, this must be the pinnacle 😅

image-orientation: auto; (My neck hurt trying to find my baggage belt 😂)

🎨 Ever wondered why oklch() is so odd? Why adjusting L doesn't produce good color ramps? And why TF is L=100% not white?! I just wrote a thorough explanation of why this happens¹: github.com/web-platform... 👍 Upvote if you want this fixed in browsers in 2027! ¹ Spoiler: it’s lack of gamut mapping

Okay, that’s it. I’ve seen enough, and I’m officially smitten. 😍 Am I a fool? Probably. I’m fully aware of all the reasons this is a terrible idea. But I still want it anyway 😅

Interop 2027 prep is now. Want to help? 1. Go to developer-signals.rviscomi.workers.dev 2. Sign-in using GitHub 3. Find features you need 4. Click the comment icon, add your use case 5. Submit There aren't many ways to tell browsers what you need and why you need them. That's a very effective one.

So today at the hotel breakfast I squirted strawberry & chocolate sauce on my eggs & bacon thinking it was ketchup & BBQ sauce. 🤦🏽‍♀️ I ended up trying it anyway. It wasn’t bad! A metaphor for life? 😅

If you use AI less than I do, you just don’t get it. If you use AI more than I do, you’ve fucking lost it. The optimal amount of AI is exactly how much I currently use.

I've been using border-shape a ton for an Electron project I'm working on and it's just the best thing ever. Well worth a vote!

The CSS progress() function is now in all major engines! Here's how it works:

But that is Chromium only … Oh look, Interop 2027 is getting started … time to give github.com/web-platform... a thumbs up 😉

New TIL: two-state dark mode toggles. I keep returning to @lea.verou.me’s argument: rather than making people think about `System`, a dark mode control should only switch away from whatever state looks “yuck”. https://ciaranlyons.com/til/2026/09/07/two-state-dark-mode-toggles

Came across this fantastic post by Slava Shestopalov randomly while looking for something else medium.com/design-bridg... In the usability & web tech class we used to teach at MIT with @karger.bsky.social I’d give a lecture on graphic design that included this, but this is so much better presented.

CSS attr() now works on all properties in Firefox 155. Here's how it works, and how to get the most out of it: