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Web fonts, boy, I don't know

meowni.ca

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Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#41

Post by drinchev »

Badly engineered, multi-purpose WordPress themes are my favorite on that matter. Not only they make you download the entire set of assets ( Think of ~2 icon fonts, half a megabyte stylesheets, megabytes of JS and on top of that 5$ DO box serving all the PHP `magic` ), but also include some entrance animations, which take additional time, before you focus on the content.

Actually this reminds me of the IoT DDoS attack. The low-tech users, making a blog by clicking around and installing 25$ theme are actually unaware that their website drains mobile-bandwidth.

So if you are developing one of these portfolio-with-landing-page-with-blog-section-woo-commerce-supported mega theme, please consider optimizing assets as your next priority.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#42

Post by metafunctor »

elcapitan wrote: post #27

Are there actually font blockers like ad blockers? That would solve the problem pretty easily for everybody who's annoyed. Although they probably won't be available for mobile browsers, where it's the most painful.

What about sites that use fonts for icons only?

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#43

Post by firasd »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #36
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #7

I have had the exact experience in the last month. Being on a slow connection, I've come to loath web fonts. There is nothing wrong with them in general but it's just that they've come to symbolise over-indulgence and a myopia towards the users actual task-focused needs as opposed to aesthetics. Part of the issue is dealing with progressive enhancement as far as slow internet connections go. How do you solve that pro…

> Would love an attribute on script and link tags that could be conditional based on connection speeds. I can't help but think of Android's "battery saver" toggle, which leaves me wondering why there's a battery waster feature and why it's on by default.

Sometimes you want the richer resources though if you're on a better connection or the resources are cached rather than this being the first page load.

In my view we definitely need a "lazyload" attribute for script, link, and img elements.

I go into more detail about lazy loading for web fonts and images (and how I found that even resources in can slow down stylesheets in ) here: https://hackernoon.com/dont-brake-for-fonts-3-web-performanc...

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#44

Post by tyingq »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #33
tyingq wrote: post #10

A 1.2 MB blog post complaining about bloat.

You do realize sometimes it's okay to have a page larger than, say, 50kb. Right? The gifs were a great way to show the exact issues she was discussing and they take up the bulk of that space. So why is that a bad thing in any way? Yes web pages should, ideally , be small but that doesn't mean the media they show to the user has to be small as well.

>You do realize sometimes it's okay to have a page larger than, say, 50kb. Right?

50KB isn't anywhere near 1.2MB. Did you mean 500KB?

The blog post specifically mentioned an experience on a 2g connection, and the bloat associated with webfonts.

Webfonts seem to typically be in the 50KB - 150KB range.

I just find it ironic to complain about bloat from one type of artifact, in a blog post that uses even larger artifacts to make that point.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#45

Post by hawkice »

metafunctor wrote: post #42
elcapitan wrote: post #27

Are there actually font blockers like ad blockers? That would solve the problem pretty easily for everybody who's annoyed. Although they probably won't be available for mobile browsers, where it's the most painful.

What about sites that use fonts for icons only?

Welcome them to the wonderful world of unicode! I flipped over all my icons to emoji, they're reasonably comprehensive, albeit less standardized (if you have really persnickity designers that might bother them).

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#46

Post by chipx86 »

acchow wrote: post #23
cs2818 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After instinctively reading the headline in a Rob Ritchie voice I am realizing I may have watched the West Wing too many times.

Currently on my fourth viewing of the series :) It's the only show I can watch over-and-over again.

I'm pretty sure I've seen it at least 10 times now. I may have a problem.

That said, it helped me get through a (terrible) US Government class back in college. There's a surprising amount of useful information in that series.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#48

Post by smacktoward »

Declanomous wrote: post #28
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #7

I have had the exact experience in the last month. Being on a slow connection, I've come to loath web fonts. There is nothing wrong with them in general but it's just that they've come to symbolise over-indulgence and a myopia towards the users actual task-focused needs as opposed to aesthetics. Part of the issue is dealing with progressive enhancement as far as slow internet connections go. How do you solve that pro…

As much as I believe font matters, I really think people should just use system fonts in general. No content is definitely more annoying than ugly content, but I have a seething hatred for webpages who jump around as content loads. "Let's click on this link... ah, not that link, let's go back. Yes, this link... NO! STOP MOVING!" Besides, I'm used to my fonts. I know your fonts are a deliberate design choice, but I'm…

> I know your fonts are a deliberate design choice, but I'm here for content.

Categorizing type as "a design choice" dismisses it as fashion rather than function, which I don't think is the case. Type can put fashion over function, but it can also enhance function by making text more readable, or perform a mix of both functions by expressing a point visually that reinforces the point the page is making textually. It is possible to remove meaning from a document by stripping away design.

> Maybe I'm just a neophyte, because I think a smaller cleaner website is better than a reactive design that has to constantly change to cram everything in

Responsive design and web fonts are different issues; you can use Web fonts on a page without any responsive design elements, and vice versa.

> I don't care though, it's stupid when I have to wait 10 seconds for a page to load on my home connection because you've got so much crap going on, and all the while the content is jumping around like a frog with it's butt on fire.

This is a real problem, but it has much less to do with either responsive design or Web fonts than with the absolute crap-ton of JavaScript sites lard themselves down with these days to do things like load ads (which is what causes all that jumping around, as slow-loading ad units pop into place and the document has to re-flow everything else to accommodate them). Try turning JavaScript off in your browser some time and you will see this immediately.

Here's an example: I was just on Rotten Tomatoes (which uses Web fonts), and was getting annoyed by precisely the kind of spastic layout you rightly decry. As an experiment, I tried loading the home page from a cold cache with JavaScript on, and then again with it off. With scripts on, it took more than 12 seconds for the page to finish loading. Without scripts: under 1 second.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#49

Post by cperciva »

Declanomous wrote: post #28
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #7

I have had the exact experience in the last month. Being on a slow connection, I've come to loath web fonts. There is nothing wrong with them in general but it's just that they've come to symbolise over-indulgence and a myopia towards the users actual task-focused needs as opposed to aesthetics. Part of the issue is dealing with progressive enhancement as far as slow internet connections go. How do you solve that pro…

As much as I believe font matters, I really think people should just use system fonts in general. No content is definitely more annoying than ugly content, but I have a seething hatred for webpages who jump around as content loads. "Let's click on this link... ah, not that link, let's go back. Yes, this link... NO! STOP MOVING!" Besides, I'm used to my fonts. I know your fonts are a deliberate design choice, but I'm…

"Let's click on this link... ah, not that link, let's go back. Yes, this link... NO! STOP MOVING!"

This is my #1 complaint about reddit. Not due to fonts; but rather when I load reddit on my phone, a "get the reddit app" banner appears... timed perfectly so that my attempt to view my messages sends me off to the app store.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#50

Post by dictum »

rndmize wrote: post #8

For God's sake man, don't leave a huge, fast gif infinitely looping where I can see it while trying to read your blog post. Make it activate after I scroll down to a certain point, or on hover, or anything that doesn't make me feel like I'm trying to read through a strobe light.

Honestly, gifs in blog posts instantly add 50 years to my age.

Before you give me the No Fun Allowed badge, let me explain:

I'm probably reading your post because I'm searching for something, in a hurry (software: it breaks apart!). When I see a gif or beat-up meme in a software-related post, it does the opposite of lightening the mood.

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