Top all-time · #418
Jeffrey Zeldman
Personal blog · zeldman.comdesignwebwriting
Jeffrey Zeldman's personal blog at zeldman.com covers design, web and writing. Since 2007, 135 different Hacker News readers have linked it 169 times, most often “A Modest Proposal”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Jeffrey Zeldman's blog for its web design and standards writing, including HTML5 and browser diversity. Commenters also cite it as a long-running influence in web design.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- One commenter says his 'Browser diversity starts with us' post is worth reading. Another calls Designing with Web Standards a good follow-up book, one says to r
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
- Jeffrey Zeldman Presents
Most-linked posts?
- A Modest Proposal5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2008-06-25
- Replacing the -9999px hack (new image replacement)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-03-01
- Off My Lawn4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-11-18
- It’s 2014. Is Web Design Dead?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-01-07
- Receipts: A brief list of prominent articles proclaiming the death of the web3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-10-25
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-01-30
- Browser diversity starts with us3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-01-25
- /dwws/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2007-10-27
- HTML5 Super Friends' Guide3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2009-09-01
- The Next Generation of Web Layouts3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-08-07
What Hacker News says?
Sure you can use ML and test subjects to maximize readability, but that's only one part of typography. Akin to Google beta testing shades of blue. http://www.zeldman.com/2009/03/20/41-shades-of-blue/
Comment linking /2009/03/20/41-shades-of-blue/
on “Five minute guide to better typography”Submitted I Stayed as a story · 210 points
HN discussionI still read some of the classics (surprised nobody mentioned them so far) and also a few newer ones: https://kottke.org/ https://daringfireball.net https://seths.blog https://www.freedomain.com/blog/ https://www.cringely.com https://www.zeldman.com https://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com http://quirksmode.org/blog/ http://hypercritical.co
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Life is Beautiful as a story · 177 points
HN discussionNo, I haven’t, thanks for mentioning it. Would Goodhart’s Law actually apply here though, since right now the data (as far as I can tell) isn’t being measured at all ? To your counter-example, maybe the metrics I described aren’t good enough and should integrate some disease severity criteria or site-weighting or comorbidity score (although as one continues to subdivide the population this way eventually you end up…
Comment linking /2009/03/20/41-shades-of-blue/
on “The Uselessness of Phenylephrine”Submitted Browser diversity starts with us as a story · 172 points
HN discussion> With Bootstrap 2, we've gone fully responsive. This would imply a fluid grid, which it lacks. http://www.zeldman.com/2011/07/06/responsive-design-i-dont-t...
Comment linking /2011/07/06/responsive-design-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/
on “Bootstrap 2.0, From Twitter”Submitted Dirty Little Secret of Success as a story · 154 points
HN discussionContributing the diversity of the web is an important action that all of us should be committed to. Read Zeldman's "Browser diversity starts with us." http://www.zeldman.com/2018/12/07/browser-diversity-starts-w...
Comment linking /2018/12/07/browser-diversity-starts-with-us/
on “No to Chrome”Submitted Laying off George as a story · 67 points
HN discussionSome of my favorites... * Tantek Çelik -> http://tantek.com and https://indieweb.org * Aaron Parecki -> https://aaronparecki.com and https://indieweb.org * Patrick (patio11) McKenzie -> http://www.kalzumeus.com * Moxie Marlinspike -> https://moxie.org * Scott Hanselman -> http://www.hanselman.com * Joel Spolsky -> https://www.joelonsoftware.com * Jeff Atwood -> https://blog.codinghorror.com * Gina Trapani -> http://…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Which developers do you closely follow?”Submitted Stop chasing followers: The web is not a numbers game as a story · 45 points
HN discussionMy late 90s web designing life was based entirely around Zeldman's "Pardon My Icons" collection: https://zeldman.com/icon1.html
Comment linking /icon1.html
on “Gurus of 90s Web Design: Zeldman, Siegel, Nielsen”Submitted Shorten this as a story · 26 points
HN discussionZeldman is dead?! Did it happen in the last 24hrs? He posted on his site yesterday https://zeldman.com/
Comment linking /
on “Gurus of 90s Web Design: Zeldman, Siegel, Nielsen”Submitted On Self-Promotion as a story · 23 points
HN discussionI like this rather new solution, which actually works in older browsers including IE7 if you happen to need to support that. Still uses text-indent, but pushes it right instead of left and sets overflow hidden to hide it. http://www.zeldman.com/2012/03/01/replacing-the-9999px-hack-...
Comment linking /2012/03/01/replacing-the-9999px-hack-new-image-replacement/
on “Say hello to Octicons”Submitted A Modest Proposal as a story · 23 points
HN discussion> That says it is the browser default size and that is not correct. It is correct, just slightly misleading. The size is made to look like the browser default size taking display density into account. It is adaptive. The 16px font, in the screenshot you send, is not "browser default size". Or, it is, but not as it was intended by browser makers. See, when it was chosen as default, we used 14" 1024x768 monitors or wo…
Comment linking /2012/05/18/web-design-manifesto-2012/
on “Web Design is 95% Typography”Submitted HTML 5 is a mess as a story · 22 points
HN discussionThis idea is also closely related to Jen Simmons's “Intrinsic Web Design” concept. There is already some automation that can be done on web layouts at the moment. More about it: http://www.zeldman.com/2018/05/02/transcript-intrinsic-web-d...
Comment linking /2018/05/02/transcript-intrinsic-web-design-with-jen-simmons-the-big-web-show/
on “Experiments in Constraint-Based Graphic Design”Submitted Web fonts now (how we’re doing with that) as a story · 22 points
HN discussion> lightweight site with a good design and readability: http://www.zeldman.com/ >1 MB is not "lightweight".
Comment linking /
on “The Website Obesity Crisis (2015)”Submitted Why I am letting my Google IO invitation expire as a story · 20 points
HN discussionIt's all smiles and sunshine, until you choose 13px as the font-size for this post. It's right then, that it happens. You made a good point about lightweight, text-driven web, but didn't care to use a saner 16px for the font-size. And so you instantly become a stereotype in my eyes. The old guy shaking his fists at modern hipster web. See this for an example of a lightweight site with a good design and readability:…
Comment linking /
on “The Website Obesity Crisis (2015)”Submitted IPad as the new Flash as a story · 19 points
HN discussionLooks like I'm not the only one thinking about this: http://www.zeldman.com/2010/02/01/flash-ipad-standards/ In particular: "Developers who supplement Flash with HTML5 may soon tire of Flash - but Adobe has a brief but golden opportunity to create the tools with which rich HTML5 content is created. Let’s see if they figure that out."
Comment linking /2010/02/01/flash-ipad-standards/
on “Adobe, Apple, and Flash”Submitted Write when inspired as a story · 17 points
HN discussionTesting won't give you any help if you started with the wrong direction. The parent of my comment might be making some joke about the 41 shades of blue that Zeldman said. And quote from him, "There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle." http://www.zeldman.com/2009/03/20/41-shades-of-blue/
Comment linking /2009/03/20/41-shades-of-blue/
on “Google Introducing New Visual Design Across All Products”Submitted NSFW tag in HTML 5 as a story · 16 points
HN discussion
