Hacker News Reader

SVG support is nearly universal now: http://caniuse.com/#feat=svg -- plus, the icons aren't necessary for the UI to function, so perhaps they've forgone the fallback.

View on HN

I wonder, do more people use an old browser or disable web fonts? <IE8 could be a lot of people.

My content blocker disables them on my iPad

For example, the blind?

Well, in Github's case the icons always seem to accompany a label, which would already make the content accessible. SVG also provides descriptions and titles that can be read out by screenreaders. Icon fonts are 'hacked' in specific unicode characters and often screenreaders try to read these characters, leading to nonsense.

But to specifically enter the question: They hide the icons. The aria-hidden attribute makes sure that the icon is not seen by screenreaders [1].

[1] http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201205/hiding_visible_...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com