(My opinion here, I know not everyone is going to agree). What I really would like to have, is web capabilities without design, I mean the browser should be in charge of most design. What I would like is more meaningful tags like <panel>, <post>, <user>, <description>, <icon>, <horizontal-menu> and let the browser handle the actual representation. CSS could be just used for rough positioning + size indication and background-color could be completely replaced by a 'contrast' tag and the browser would display the color according to the user choice or operating system interface. The website would then adapt itself to the user and not the opposite.
The problem is that, as a user, I want to be in control, to dictate what's allowed and what not. But as developer, I want the browser to behave like I need to accomplish whatever the site is offering to the user.
So there's a conflict there. And the browsers should be the mediators, much like the OS is, at a different level.
If the web were merely declarative, we would have gotten a better web
I think the way to go is for the site author to offer their own content style. Then the user has the choice to use that, or to use their own style. They can default to whatever they want (theirs or sites'), and override on a case-by-case basis.
If a user is determined to view your site with different colors/fonts, then there's no reason to fight them. They could even have very legitimate reasons (poor eyesight needing bigger fonts, color blindness issues, etc.)
But for this to really work, we need to drastically decrease the variation involved in the site markup (HTML), and rely much more heavily on the styling (CSS) for page layout. HTML5 semantic elements don't go nearly far enough.
There is a reason to fight them: layout. The battle is not developers vs users, its designers vs users. Designers want everything to look exactly like their vision (understandably), and that means things like bits of text fitting in exactly the right dimensions and placement. Once you let users resize things on a whim, that goes out the window, because most likely everything will look completely wrong.
It also opens the door for dead simple ad blocking that can't be stopped, and business owners will never stand for that. The purpose that the web has been bent to in the last 15 years is simply not compatible with user styles.
This is starting to happen with things like google material and similar UI libraries that try to standardize appearances across devices. It isn't as granular as you are asking but I actually like that aspect. Delegating design and display to the browser isn't ideal for a lot of reasons. I would like to exercise control over how my content is displayed and regularly load in reset sheets for css. Display is something delegated to a framework not a browser (my opinion).
I think that <something/> should be in charge of handling representation and we are seeing that with ui frameworks that standardize displays across devices and applications.
> background-color could be completely replaced by a 'contrast' tag
What? There are many different colors on websites and users are lazy. Also, css should ideally be for styling not positioning, but it is one of the only options right now.
It might be a strange (and incomplete) thought but how I see it is that the browser would deduce the color. Contrast would be relative to text. For example the panel has a contrast of 0.8, so the browser should chose a color which is readable according to the text color if we would put both on the same panel. This color could be picked from the OS design. It does not mean that it would be ugly tough since you can use pretty good designs and colors, the web would just look much more consistent.
i am just going to punt because this still isn't landing for me. Maybe I am just mischaracterizing you, but it seems like you are either frustrated building things with outdated tools, or you want more control as a user. If it is the former, we are at the top of a funnel right now and we will start to see much better tools become improved and a few winners will emerge. If you want more control over your sites as a user you would probably have to force the css to either not load, or override it with your own scheme.
it's just, when you say color, it isn't that easy. There are tons of screen sizes and even as minimal as hacker news is has at least 4 colors, so I am not sure what would happen on a site like fast company with many different colors. An OS/Browser couldn't manage that because no one would agree. Ok fine I didn't punt.
