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

shkspr.mobi

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

#71

Post by petters »

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 works beautifully for it's indented audience.

I think many people, my parents included, would have trouble navigating HN on a phone. Especially upvote/downvote.

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

#72

Post by dec0dedab0de »

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.

I generally agree. But thumbs up/down is difficult on mobile with my fat fingers, even worse since I've had nervr damage.

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

#73

Post by ourcat »

rob74 wrote: post #64

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?

That's the latest WordPress 'twentytwenty' theme I think.

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

#74

Post by asiando »

tartrate wrote: post #18

Mobile browsers usually have a "request desktop version" checkbox. How does that work then?

On iOS it just changes the UA. This means that regular CSS-only responsive sites don’t change at all, unlike what the other 2 comments are suggesting. Maybe on Android it’s different.

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

#75

Post by zdragnar »

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…

Just use the word "menu". The hamburger menu (and its cousin, the three vertical dots) have no analogy to the real world.

Sure, it has become more common, but for anyone not already familiar with it, it is utterly useless. You have to be willing to click random things to discover what it does.

From personal experience, I had to train both my wife and mother to look for them, neither of whom had the patience otherwise to figure out these cute designs. They may be common at the sites you look at, but that doesnt help people who have only used sites without them, or only used portions of sites accessible without clicking on them.

I consider that to be an utter failure.

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

#77

Post by iamben »

asiando wrote: post #61
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.

Yeah, I still very often get "here is the desktop design, here is the mobile design". Depending on who is developing the designs depends how that's going to translate.

I have all the time in the world for developers that reflow the page and remove/adjust elements at different breakpoints (based on the design) between 'desktop' and 'mobile' so the experience is good for everyone. Sadly, most people don't bother.

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

#78

Post by tyingq »

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…

The example of https://www.just-eat.co.uk/ bailing out to a hamburger menu at 768px, just to deal with 5 navigation options is a bit much.

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

#79

Post by matsemann »

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.

Lolno. I have to make Firefox take only half the screen, otherwise HN will render wiiide lines with text. I cannot read lines with >200 characters, then I miss the mark when jumping to the next line when it's multiple lines in a paragraph. HN is also the only site I have zoomed in on desktop, as the font is unreadably small on high dpi devices.

And on mobile I find it impossible to hit the upvote arrow.

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

#80

Post by sillysaurusx »

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…

This doesn't address the author's central argument, which is that websites need an effortless way of letting fonts become bigger without affecting the entire layout. I've wanted it too. I don't really care if some text gets cut off on headers and looks weird, I just want to read stuff from the comfort of my bed with my laptop a few feet away.
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