The Web Witch's Blog

Web We Want Progress Update - November 2020

13 November 2020

We've been driving the Web We Want for over a year now, asking developers what they think is missing from the web platform or DevTools.

Before COVID-19, we had run 9 WWW sessions at events with plans to do more. Behind the scenes we’ve been working out a plan on how to evolve this session for the current virtual situation we’re in and still be meaningful.

Stay tuned for news to come there but for now I wanted to provide a brief update on some of the Wants that had been submitted and their current status.

Landed features & in-progress work #

  • Developers want a source order viewer for rearranged content: The Source Order Viewer was presented at the Web We Want session at Smashing Conf NYC last October and was the Judge's Pick. This feature has landed in Edge Canary.
  • Developers want accessibility tools front & center: the DevTools team took this as an opportunity to surface accessibility hints in the Issues panel of the browser DevTools.
  • Developers want a 3D Viewer like in Firefox DevTools: This feature was in-progress when the Web We Want submission came in and is now available in the Edge DevTools.
  • Developers want better HTML Form Controls: We've received numerous submissions about improving HTML Controls. Edge, Chrome and Salesforce are working alongside the Open UI initiative to drastically overhaul and improve styling controls which is a validated (and large) pain point for developers.

A better way for discussion #

We’ve made some updates as well to allow for a more collaborative environment with the submitted Wants. All of them have been moved to GitHub Discussions in the Web We Want repo where we can add supporting documentation and have a discussion with community members about implementation or standards work already in progress.

We’d love for more community involvement to help drive some of these things. If you’re interested in contributing to an explainer or being involved in the development and future of something, head on over and browse submissions and start a discussion. We’re listening!

Other ways to participate #

Though submissions aren’t being driven by the normal events we would be at, this initiative is still taking submissions.

You can participate by letting us know what you want for the web and filling out the form on the site or by going through the submitted Wants and upvoting what you want to see in browsers or DevTools. We’re paying attention to those upvotes.

We have some more surveys in the works to help prioritize submissions as well. So if you’d like to stay up to date on those and the latest news with the Web We Want, give us a follow on Twitter.

This is a community effort and we’re thrilled to have some features landing in browsers and others in the works through standards groups. Progress is real and happening and I’m so excited to continue to drive this effort.

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