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Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

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Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#61

Post by asiando »

jefftk wrote: post #48

Sites are not detecting a portrait screen and deciding that they're displaying on a phone. Someone who switches their monitor to portrait, or resizes a window to be taller than it is wide, is still going to get the desktop view. In this case the author is scaling their resolution, and so their browser is presenting itself to sites as 720px wide. Sites see that and show a layout optimized for a screen of that width. T…

Agreed completely. One mistake that designers/developers do though is to completely give up under 1000px so we get this swaths of whitespace and a hamburger. That’s a waste of estate and a waste of my time.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#62

Post by InfiniteRand »

Nathanael_M wrote: post #44
timw4mail wrote: post #15

The real problem is that designing for different screen sizes, especially with responsive design, is very difficult. For my personal projects, screen size is the factor used to determine layout. Mobile/tablet/laptop/desktop is irrelevant. My goal with smaller viewports is to make the layout as similar as possible, without the user having to scroll horizontally. Because I don't want to change the layout too much, I do…

I'm curious what your menu solution is. I agree hamburger menus besmirch the good name of the hamburger, but for longer menus they feel like at least an acceptable solution.

I like gear icons, sometimes they don't map to exactly the semantics of what is in a menu, but if there are no other possible menu elements than I know to go to the gear icon.

I've become used to the hamburger menu, but it still doesn't catch my eye (Chrome's now three dot option is even worse at this), gear looks noticeably different than the rest of the UI and so I can easily spot it for options.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#63

Post by tootie »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

Wait, so sniffing on screen resolution is the way web developers distinguish desktops from mobile? That's just crazy . There should IMO be a preference sent, "I'm on a portable, touch-enabled device". I'm guessing it doesn't exist because it would add a bit to the fingerprint.

It's a bad habit, but it's pretty common. Really, there's two distinct things to consider when building responsive design. One is viewport size (and really just width in most cases) and the other is touch vs mouse. Vertical monitors is one case, but so is touch-enabled monitors or mouse-enabled handhelds. Most of those are considered small enough edge cases, that it's not worth investing. Most websites look kinda crummy if you use a phone in landscape too.

I used to insist that designers never say "phone, tablet, desktop" and instead say "small, medium and large" but it never stuck.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#64

Post by rob74 »

Ironically, the author of dpi.lv (https://lea.verou.me/) doesn't even bother to have a "desktop-friendly" site. On desktop everything (font, header, images, buttons) is huge and ~50% of the vertical space is wasted. Not the best calling card for someone living "at the bleeding edge of web standards". Or maybe it looks Ok if you view it on a Mac?

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#65

Post by madeofpalk »

Hendrikto wrote: post #51
timw4mail wrote: post #15

The real problem is that designing for different screen sizes, especially with responsive design, is very difficult. For my personal projects, screen size is the factor used to determine layout. Mobile/tablet/laptop/desktop is irrelevant. My goal with smaller viewports is to make the layout as similar as possible, without the user having to scroll horizontally. Because I don't want to change the layout too much, I do…

> Hamburger menus are terrible - I see them as a design copout. I am genuinely interested in why. The only reason I can think of, is that they may me unintuitive, but I think this is becoming less and less of a problem. Hamburger menus are an accepted and pervasive design element. That does not means it’s good design, but it means that users are familiar with the concept. Familiarity goes a long way to ensuring good…

There's a lot of "literature" about the shortcomings of hamburger menus and "junk drawer navigation" that come up when i google the topic.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#66

Post by jefftk »

thesuitonym wrote: post #46
jefftk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UA doesn't tell you anything about the screen the person is viewing on or the size of their window. If I resize a window on my desktop to 450x1000, showing me the layout for narrow screens is likely the best option.

Perhaps the answer is not to change elements on the website, but to design the site in such a way that it looks good at any resolution. We used to do this before responsive design took over.

Responsive design is about making the site look good at any size. Can you give an example of the "old way" vs the "responsive design" way?

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#67

Post by asiando »

dahfizz wrote: post #59
timw4mail wrote: post #15

The real problem is that designing for different screen sizes, especially with responsive design, is very difficult. For my personal projects, screen size is the factor used to determine layout. Mobile/tablet/laptop/desktop is irrelevant. My goal with smaller viewports is to make the layout as similar as possible, without the user having to scroll horizontally. Because I don't want to change the layout too much, I do…

The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.

It’s not that hard to display a few paragraphs. It’s hard to display complex pieces of information while also making them look good to the client (which, we should remember, pays our bills)

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#68

Post by Spooks »

dahfizz wrote: post #59
timw4mail wrote: post #15

The real problem is that designing for different screen sizes, especially with responsive design, is very difficult. For my personal projects, screen size is the factor used to determine layout. Mobile/tablet/laptop/desktop is irrelevant. My goal with smaller viewports is to make the layout as similar as possible, without the user having to scroll horizontally. Because I don't want to change the layout too much, I do…

The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.

HN is a pretty minimal site though - it is just a message board.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#69

Post by matsemann »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

Wait, so sniffing on screen resolution is the way web developers distinguish desktops from mobile? That's just crazy . There should IMO be a preference sent, "I'm on a portable, touch-enabled device". I'm guessing it doesn't exist because it would add a bit to the fingerprint.

> Wait, so sniffing on screen resolution is the way web developers distinguish desktops from mobile? That's just crazy.

No, it's not how it's done. And there is generally no logic trying to see if it's a mobile or not. One just have various designs for various sizes. When he has a 700px wide display, what else can the website do than collapse the content when it's not enough space for it?

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#70

Post by asiando »

madeofpalk wrote: post #58

I'm kind of confused about this - I'm sure the author experiences real problems, but I wonder if there's something else at play here? I've never actually seen screen aspect ratio media queries used in practice, nor have I really seen them advocated for. When I load www.theguardian.com on my portrait monitor (1441 x 2561) I get the desktop layout https://imgur.com/a/ZpUI95Z Absolutely yes design your breakpoints aroun…

The author is actually complaining about narrow viewports and not about portrait orientations, without even realizing it.
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