Products · Product
HTML5
Raised as a usability problem by 74 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2009–2025), in 71 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Two-finger scroll on Mac sometimes zooms or triggers browser backUnreviewed
20092026- Zoom doesn't work via scroll or keys and no zoom UI, blocking tutorial progress2018-05-16
- Two-finger scroll on Mac sometimes zooms or triggers browser back instead2012-11-21
- Page hijacks mouse scroll, hiding text at the bottom until reloads and zoom-outs2010-04-17
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Web development became much more complicated after HTML5's early simplicity2025-11-04
- Web apps lack built-in controls, so apps end up inconsistent and dependent on third-party frameworks2024-07-12
- Native date inputs lack placeholder and show-picker-on-focus, forcing heavy JS/CSS workarounds2023-08-05
- Learning to place a simple button takes years; HTML semantics feel unintuitive2023-05-10
- Web content breaks after browser updates and works differently across browsers2022-12-21
- Web UI APIs are hard to use: no state handling, no built-in controls, hacky dialog accessibility2022-12-13
- Audio APIs are unstable and break about once a year2022-04-10
- Clicking and dragging does nothing; only keyboard works, unclear without instructions2022-04-08
- Declared cursor gets overridden by defaults and flickers while dragging elements2021-04-17
- Compositing options are broken or misdefined, making it weirdly hard to render to an alpha channel2019-11-19
- Fullscreen on mobile doesn't rotate to landscape, forcing manual rotation2019-01-18
- Tapping volume button mutes video instead of revealing the hidden volume bar2019-01-18
- Couldn't keep the date picker calendar always visible, forcing a jQuery workaround2018-06-20
- Loading bar appears stuck near the end, making users think the game has frozen2018-05-16
- Zoom doesn't work via scroll or keys and no zoom UI, blocking tutorial progress2018-05-16
- Web document model is impossible to work with and layout management is impossible2018-04-13
- Videos keep autoplaying and there is no reliable way to stop it2017-07-26
- Fullscreen warning looks different in each browser and needs an input handler to trigger2017-02-27
- Web-based app interfaces fall short of what native platform APIs can deliver2017-02-15
- Users can no longer block videos from autoplaying, so they get media forced on them2016-02-08
- Web app development feels like building with matchsticks, less convenient than older toolkits2016-01-31
- Game is basically unusable on a powerful laptop due to too many units spawning at start2015-09-11
- Dragging from a stack's corner pulls a card from the middle instead2015-09-03
- Clicking Reset restarts the timer, and no way to stop it is found2015-06-30
- Meteor's mobile HTML5 client feels clunky to the commenter2014-12-23
- Video controls vary and may be hidden, hiding that a video is clickable and obscuring content2014-12-07
- Video tutorial dismissed by accidental click anywhere; export option hard to find2014-10-08
- Noticeable delay when clicking buttons in HTML5 apps2014-05-16
- No clear instructions on how to use the repository; user is left lost2014-03-28
- Switching between pencil marks and answers takes multiple clicks on phone2014-01-09
- Jumbled content stays overlaying the page when moving between slides2014-01-07
- DOM and CSS make mobile apps slow and degrade the user experience2013-07-24
- Input types render differently across browsers and are hard to style consistently2013-06-07
- Reading-time banner takes up a quarter of the mobile screen while scrolling2013-05-26
- Makeover choices use a drop-down, which the commenter finds annoying to use2013-03-12
- Loading message stays after closing instructions and level won't load until reset2013-03-06
- Can't find a way to go full-screen; headers and footers waste 15-20% of reading space2013-01-10
- When offline, forms accept input but the view never updates and nothing works2012-11-27
- App feels slow and laggy when tapped compared to native2012-11-27
- Two-finger scroll on Mac sometimes zooms or triggers browser back instead2012-11-21
- No key explanation; player can't tell all controls or how to interact with signs2012-10-22
- Scrolling thousands of images and applying image filters is slow and laggy2012-09-10
- Default HTML5 sliders and calendars are too bare to give a good user experience2012-07-13
- HTML/CSS/JS app UIs are broken, inconsistent, and not intuitive for users2012-07-02
- Developers must work around browser limits like no anti-aliasing control and single-channel audio2012-05-19
- Hidden settings and usage info are hard to discover; the minimized dashboard is a vague indicator2012-05-18
- Settings and help share one screen with no visual separation, which is confusing2012-05-18
- Can't select the right state while the map is rotating; small states are hard to hit2012-05-13
- Transitions look glitchy and alpha blending forces features to be turned off on iPad2012-05-09
- Homepage lags noticeably when scrolling up and down2012-02-14