Creator of Shoelace [0] here. As someone who’s built multiple design systems and component libraries, I assure you that unstyled (or “headless”) components are often much more time consuming and painful to adopt than those with good default styles.
That said, I commonly find that most folks don’t want unstyled components because it’s quite a bit of work to style every single state of every single component. Most people just won’t do it or, if they try, they don’t do it right and they don’t do it completely.
What many folks do want are components that have simple, generic styles you can quickly tweak to match your site/app using a skill you already know: CSS. (This is something you can do with Shoelace’s 50+ web components already, but we’re working to make it even easier with additional CSS custom properties.)
Thanks so much for your work, the components look great and straightforward to use. Next time I'm building something will definitely try to give Shoelace a spin.
Can I ask, are ARIA attributes handled by default?
Perhaps this isn't as specific of an answer as you're looking for, as I'm not too familiar with the Shoelace library, but perhaps we gain some insight from the Shoelace Accessibility Commitment.
> My commitment to Shoelace users is this: Everything I develop will be built with accessibility in mind. I will test and improve every component to the best of my ability and knowledge. I will work around upstream issues, such as browser bugs and limitations, to the best of my ability and within reason.
The goal is to handle as much accessibility as possible with smart defaults and by making it easy for users to get right. Currently, all aria stuff is handled internally the components. For example, look at <sl-input> and you’ll see that the input, label, and help text are automatically linked in the shadow root. The minimum the user needs to provide is a label and assistive devices work as expected.
It is very true. Most of us who are not designers just want a very good looking default style. We can change if we want to later. It is a pain that react doesn't come with default style.
That said, I commonly find that most folks don’t want unstyled components because it’s quite a bit of work to style every single state of every single component. Most people just won’t do it or, if they try, they don’t do it right and they don’t do it completely.
What many folks do want are components that have simple, generic styles you can quickly tweak to match your site/app using a skill you already know: CSS. (This is something you can do with Shoelace’s 50+ web components already, but we’re working to make it even easier with additional CSS custom properties.)
[0] https://shoelace.style/