Like many Americans, I’m processing some unfamiliar emotions today, but I believe that I’m genuinely thrilled about the new White House website. The site allows visitors to toggle font sizes. It includes an Easter Egg in the HTML with a job posting for coders. And, perhaps most thrillingly, it supports dark mode.
A few reasons White House dot gov dark mode is objectively exciting. Number one: It’s reassuring to know that the executive branch has a competent web developer. Number two: saves my eyeballs. Number three: saves the environment by using less energy (sometimes). Number four, personally: it’s dark, Hail Satan.
Adding to that, Jared Smith, the associate director of the web accessibility organisation WebAIM, said in an email that, at first glance, the site looks to be very accessible.
“We don’t usually recommend widgets like this [dark mode and text adjustment tools] because such settings are typically best handled on the end user side, but their implementation of these seems to be very accessible,” Smith wrote. “Considering the very broad reach and audience of whitehouse.gov, I think these are just fine – and they make a bit of an accessibility statement on their own.” Smith added that he’s “thrilled” to see an accessibility statement on the site.
This is just one of the many pleasant changes that have washed over the internet like a cleansing snow ‘neath a soft beam of light from the heavens. The Wikipedia page has been updated. The 1776 project is gone. The @POTUS account has been sanitised. Fresh Bernie Sanders memes have been generated.
Are you seeing things on the internet and feeling happy today, rather than temporarily relieved of dread, whatever the topic? Please share.