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Web fonts, boy, I don't know

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

#201

Post by paulcole »

chipx86 wrote: post #46
acchow wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There should be a 10x club (support group?). I think I've seen it about that many times, too. My favorite thing is how often Sorkin reuses the exact same lines throughout all of his works. I'm assuming this is 100% intentional, but haven't ruled out the possibility he was simply too high to remember what he wrote previously.

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

#202

Post by kutkloon7 »

I absolutely do not understand the need for 'web fonts'. Just specify a normal font that most users already have installed in CSS, with some fallbacks.

'Progressive styling' is way more annoying (in my humble opinion) than waiting some time. Pages like the verge can take minutes anyway, when the wifi is not optimal. When you do things progressively, the page just keeps on changing, and the page can't really be used. So if you have a long page with text, and the user is somewhere halfway, the font loads and... BOOM! You are reading text that is located 8 paragraphs from where you were reading one instant ago.

This is far more annoying with images which dont specify their size, but I would still consider it bad practice to use an uncommon font for non-artistic pages.

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

#203

Post by Kalium »

kutkloon7 wrote: post #202

I absolutely do not understand the need for 'web fonts'. Just specify a normal font that most users already have installed in CSS, with some fallbacks. 'Progressive styling' is way more annoying (in my humble opinion) than waiting some time. Pages like the verge can take minutes anyway, when the wifi is not optimal. When you do things progressively, the page just keeps on changing, and the page can't really be used.…

> I absolutely do not understand the need for 'web fonts'. Just specify a normal font that most users already have installed in CSS, with some fallbacks.

Imagine you're a company whose business operates exclusively through your website. Imagine further that your company is the sort for whom design is critical because it drives your business. You are going to insist on making sure everything looks perfect in every scenario.

You can think of it as design control-freakery. Typography really matters to some people.

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

#204

Post by alanh »

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…

Myopia is a good word for it.

A quote I like on designers avoiding the actual experiences they create: https://wellfuckingsaid.com/2016/on-designers-ignoring-those...

A thing I wrote urging you to test your own work in simulated slow network conditions: https://alanhogan.com/slow-it-down-gain-empathy

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

#205

Post by ovao »

wfunction wrote: post #160
cperciva wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Same thing with the Facebook app; whenever you're searching for something, it shows the result you want, but then like 0.5-1 second later it pops up a different result above it so you tap the wrong thing. Drives me insane.

Ugh, I feel you. I've trained myself not to tap on a result unless I've waited several seconds. Life improved immeasurably.

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

#206

Post by alanh »

truth_sentinell wrote: post #96
losteric wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to suspect that behavior is intentional. I see this all the time with mobile ads... a site slowly loads as I read content, then an ad pops up right when I try to navigate. Incredibly frustrating. It's like advertisers want me to install adblock... so I will, I'll root my device and adblock all their bullshit forever.

That's so annoying. Worst thing is that adblocks are not as easily available as in desktops. I'm on windows phone 10, my only browser is Edge, so I'm really fucked.

This makes it all the more regrettable that Microsoft buried the competition and you are stuck with Windows forever: http://developers-club.com/posts/104034/

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

#207

Post by Jach »

takeda wrote: post #64
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's very wasteful. Here's example what you could do with less than 200kb: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=30244 If you don't want to run it on your computer, you can watch recording from youtube.

Or 96KB: https://youtu.be/2NBG-sKFaB0

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

#208

Post by mos_basik »

discreditable wrote: post #6

My feeling on web fonts is that that they can sometimes look nice but aren't worth the page weight. My approach is to pick two fonts I expect MacOS and Windows to have, then fall back to generic. Other times, I'm more lazy and just use the generic. To put it more bluntly: https://bestmotherfucking.website/#remote-fonts

>that link

Nice. I was only familiar with the original one; I wasn't aware that there were more. It appears to be the most recent one? I was hoping to find a comprehensive list of this kind of site somewhere but didn't. I did find these by following some breadcrumbs:

  1. http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ [original]
  2. http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/
  3. http://evenbettermotherfucking.website/
  4. https://bestmotherfucking.website/ [yours]
  5. https://thebestmotherfuckingwebsite.co/ [with extra satire]
I don't think #3 is a particularly strong example, though. I don't think it looks bad - In fact I think it looks good; my personal site uses monospace fonts - but I think it adds too much to make its point effectively.

#4's criticism of #3 is spot on, and its mention of Let's Encrypt, gzip and caching make it my new favorite. Thanks!

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

#210

Post by alanh »

esonderegger wrote: post #106
jimktrains2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have none of you ever worked for a designer or marketing person who was unwilling to accept that a bit of text might wrap on Windows (Arial), but fit on one line on a Mac (Helvetica)? > Until we can get the major operating systems to include some of the most popular open-source fonts, we're stuck with web fonts. This really seems to be a problem with marketing and design people; we're not stuck with webfonts. We're…

I tend to agree with you, but I think it's important to constantly be trying to understand where other people are coming from. They might not be so unreasonable; they just have different priorities than we do. Our idea of what a webpage is might be a text document where the presentation is less important than the content. To others, the presentation IS the content. For some people, it might depend on what message the…

Where you are wrong, I think, is that “the presentation IS the content” is a common belief among “designers” but almost never the belief of users.
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