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Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

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Re: Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

#101

Post by james-skemp »

zoul wrote: post #71
Feniks wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh I want information not design. I'll happily block any third party font in favour of what my native browser can do. What's wrong with Times new Roman? I can read it just fine.

It’s not possible to separate form from content. You always get the information in some form, some design. Good design makes it easier to get the information. Times was designed for a different world, I would say that modern typefaces designed for the web are easier to read on the screen. Apart from that, different content works better in different typefaces. What you despise is not design, I’d say. What you despise…

This makes me wonder if browsers could change the default font pages are served in or if the specs dictate the font, like they do for link colors.

Re: Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

#102

Post by krapp »

qznc wrote: post #31
pwaai wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss the 90s web I used to browse with Netscape Navigator. I really liked static navigation menus where I didn't have to stop and infer the functionalities from an icon or hidden expendable/scrolling menus. I made my first website with it when I was 11 (still have it on a cd rom)...it was so simple to use. In fact, a lot of stuff in the late 90s to the early 2000s were very approachable as a curious noob. I started…

> miss the 90s web I used to browse with Netscape Navigator. I really liked static navigation menus where I didn't have to stop and infer the functionalities from an icon or hidden expendable/scrolling menus. You romanticize. We made confusing menus as well with JavaScript (called DynamicHTML back then), Flash, and Java plugins. We were proud of fire and water effects and other gimmicks.

cough JS enabled form dropdowns and iframes and imagemaps... cough

And then Superfish when you wanted to be serious.

Re: Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

#103

Post by rainingmonkey »

shpx wrote: post #24
wheresmyusern wrote: post #12

there is a huge problem with browsers right now -- they are very complicated and big and therefore their development is monopolized by three large organizations, leading to browsers that dont adhere to the best interests of the users. and yet, as this article demonstrates, much of the internet does not require any of the complicated machinery in modern browsers. we have seen our culture, the worlds culture, adopt com…

http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw.lite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)

There seems to be the beginnings of a gopher comeback! I've seen a lot of interest, but it seems to fade fairly quickly due to a lack of decent content.

Shameless plug: EinChan is readable through gopher too: gopher://einchan.god.jp

Re: Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

#104

Post by dredmorbius »

This is a case of what I'm coming to call a Gresham's Mechanism, after Gresham's Law.

The phenomena we see as Gresham's Law, which does and always has exerted itself far beyond coinage -- the first use is found in Aristophanes' "The Frogs", in ancient Greece, referring to both coin and politicians, concerns a fitness or reward mechanism, within some environment, specifically to complexity or quality.

This can express itself as both a non-reward of higher quality, and of a temporary seeking of greater complexity, depending on a number of factors (and I'm still trying to sort out a description of how these may manifest).

In the instant case of Websites, chasing advertising dollars has rewarded more complex, and paradoxically, less informational sites, which are expensive in terms of the compute resources required to deliver them. There is a possible inflection point at which simpler, lighter-weight alternatives can present both more and better information, sufficient visual appeal (see my comments and links elsehere in this thread), and at far less complexity.

This also shows up in various technologies and progressions, particularly as a novel "worse-is-better" option emerges and overturns an established method or product.

Re: Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

#105

Post by CaptSpify »

krapp wrote: post #95
TeMPOraL wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good point, but it's not a full counterargument. Regular users don't optimize their work environment strongly, but that doesn't mean they don't care. And current situation is that full power over site layout is in hands of site designers. I believe this is a bad balance, and needs to be strongly shifted towards good and easily configurable defaults client-side. That is, I believe the situation will improve mea…

>the reality proves that the commercial web in general can not be trusted with so much power over layout. That's not a reality, though, that's an opinion. If we were to "dumb down" HTML5/CSS and remove degrees of creative freedom from authors in favor of centralized, client-side solutions, we would do so for everyone, not just the "commercial web." A web where everything looks and behaves exactly the same is a web wh…

100% disagree. People fundamentally understand the power of the web, even if they don't realize it. To be able to link/chat/discuss quickly, freely, and easily will still win out, and people will still use it.

Re: Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

#107

Post by TeMPOraL »

CaptSpify wrote: post #105
krapp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the reality proves that the commercial web in general can not be trusted with so much power over layout. That's not a reality, though, that's an opinion. If we were to "dumb down" HTML5/CSS and remove degrees of creative freedom from authors in favor of centralized, client-side solutions, we would do so for everyone, not just the "commercial web." A web where everything looks and behaves exactly the same is a web wh…

100% disagree. People fundamentally understand the power of the web, even if they don't realize it. To be able to link/chat/discuss quickly, freely, and easily will still win out, and people will still use it.

Exactly. And if current wild west of web design tells us anything, is that users can endure any kind of look&feel because they ultimately don't give a crap about it, they want to do what they came there to do.

(Which makes the "web where everything looks and behaves exactly the same" better than the web where designers fuck with UX to get a fraction of a percent increase on an A/B test, because consistent interfaces are easier on the mind of the user.)

Re: Text-only news sites are slowly making a comeback

#108

Post by msla »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #25

By all means today's content websites are an abomination, but I don't see why we need to throw the baby out with the bath water by completely rejecting any attempt at styling websites and going back on all readability best practices. I see a lot of websites now which, in an attempt to reject all the nonsense, end up rejecting even basic CSS, and you are subjected to browser width text in Times New Roman with ugly blu…

There's absolutely nothing wrong with danluu.com, and thinking there is betrays a weakness in your design sense.
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