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Every pricing page should have GIFs

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Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#71

Post by janekm »

technobabbler wrote: post #43
janekm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for screen recordings, unless you're doing a screen recording of photos or videos a GIF will typically be more bandwidth efficient (as there will be large areas of single colours and few changes between frames which GIF is good at).

> as there will be large areas of single colours and few changes between frames which GIF is good at Pretty sure that's how modern video codecs work too. A lot of movies have regions that don't change much between frames (e.g. backgrounds, or some dude's face staring at the camera all dramatically). What GIF gets you is a lossless video, which is overkill for most applications. Video codecs can achieve a similar perc…

As another example the encoder at https://compress-or-die.com does a quite impressive job at compressing the GIF if allowing some loss of visual quality. Taking the number of colours down to 14 and allowing lossy compression I got the file size down to 386kB: https://compress-or-die.com/gif-process?expert-mode=no&exper...

I'd consider that a good trade-off given the universal compatibility of GIFs, and no ringing in the decoded video.

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#72

Post by mikestew »

matt-attack wrote: post #48
k1t wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes liberties are taken here, such as California originally separating carpool lanes with yellow lines (when they should have been white). Presumably they felt that even though yellow was incorrect, it sent a clearer "do not cross" message to drivers. They were later ordered to change them to white.

I noticed that change recently and assumed it was motivated by Tesla. There are certain things we all take for granted when driving. A huge one that we probably don’t give much conscious thought to us this: How do we know if the lane to the left is ok to go in, or if it actually is for carrying oncoming traffic? You’d like to think that one way though not the only way, is to look for a double yellow line. As in, doub…

I noticed that change recently and assumed it was motivated by Tesla.

My '11 Nissan Leaf couldn't even have LED taillights because the Feds said "no". Tesla isn't going to march into some DOT office and demand that the color of the lines be changed to accommodate them (I mean, they could, but the laughter would drown out the conversation).

CA changed it because not only was yellow against federal guidelines, but also because I personally believe it was a stupid choice to begin with (for reasons others have already listed).

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#73

Post by aasasd »

We should define a media pseudo-format, or at least attributes for the ‘video’ tag, which would say that the video will play without sound—with it being enforced by the browser and without the option for the user to turn sound on. This way, modern codecs can be used for short animations instead of the format for moving 16x16 icons from '87—while still allowing users to block regular videos. Maybe even force-limit the duration to thirty seconds or so.

Right now, it doesn't make much sense that GIFs are allowed to play automatically, but decent codecs aren't—if I want to evade videos, that is.

(Though OTOH the size of GIFs might serve a purpose in limiting site-authors' appetites for trashy animation, but I don't see bandwidth being much of a concern for them lately.)

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#74

Post by huhtenberg »

tambourine_man wrote: post #19

>It even works on mobile! Recently I've been having trouble pinpointing sarcasm on the web. That can't be real, can it? Mobile traffic has been larger than desktop for over a decade. We've been hammering mobile-first for almost that long. If that was a joke, sorry it passed right over my head. Also, GIFs… in 2021? We've had , , for what, 15 years?

> Mobile traffic has been larger than desktop for over a decade.

For cat videos - most likely.

But for sites selling (enterprise) software and services - almost certainly not.

> We've been hammering mobile-first for almost that long.

Do you work for Google? That's pretty much the only "we" that's been hammering that.

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#75

Post by marcosdumay »

leephillips wrote: post #40
ichydkrsrnae wrote: post #16

There's a UX problem on mobile. I have to click on something to make the GIF appear. What do I click? A link. Expected behavior of a link is to link me elsewhere, not to show a pop-up GIF, so I'm immediately confused when that happens. I also can't figure out how to make the link actually link. Does it link anywhere? Is it even a link or just Jscript onClick thingy? Do I have to click on the GIF to make it link, beca…

The page is a disaster on a desktop, too. It does something weird to the scroll, so I can't use either my arrow keys or my Vimium keys in the normal way. Note to web authors: I'm sure I'm not the only one who left quickly after I saw that my scroll was hijacked. If you want people to read your stuff, try dialing back the user abuse.

I endured the hijacked scroll because I was curious about what he meant.

It looks like a good idea, but in a very user-hostile interface, what wasn't surprising at all. If I had to guess, the author is honestly trying to increase his site's usability by overriding the default behavior, he is just failing spectacularly.

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#76

Post by tambourine_man »

huhtenberg wrote: post #74
tambourine_man wrote: post #19

>It even works on mobile! Recently I've been having trouble pinpointing sarcasm on the web. That can't be real, can it? Mobile traffic has been larger than desktop for over a decade. We've been hammering mobile-first for almost that long. If that was a joke, sorry it passed right over my head. Also, GIFs… in 2021? We've had , , for what, 15 years?

> Mobile traffic has been larger than desktop for over a decade. For cat videos - most likely. But for sites selling (enterprise) software and services - almost certainly not. > We've been hammering mobile-first for almost that long. Do you work for Google? That's pretty much the only "we" that's been hammering that.

>For cat videos - most likely.

Not at all

[1] https://techjury.net/blog/mobile-vs-desktop-usage/#gref

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-...

>Do you work for Google? That's pretty much the only "we" that's been hammering that.

Nope. It's just everyone, really.

[3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...

[4] https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/process/ui-design/what-is-mobile-...

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#77

Post by marcosdumay »

capybara_2020 wrote: post #17
franciscop wrote: post #15

Don't use GIFs, use audioless mp4s instead. They can be made to work in the exact same way as GIFs (autoplay, loop or not, etc) but are a fraction of the bandwidth.

Can they be used exactly like gifs? I have seen a few sites with mp4s but Firefox blocks them. I do not think even sites like Dribbble have figured it out. I have a lot of issues there with videos.

Well, Firefox blocks gifs to me too.

It depends on how you configure it. Any option you choose, make sure the first frame is informative.

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#78

Post by rsync »

The problem with this kind of UI is that when you scroll the page, you inadvertently mouseover the links as you scroll.

So different pieces of the content you are trying to read keep getting hidden in a frustrating way as you're trying to read it.

You can see this in the OPs video right at the beginning - after the very first mouseover he moves his mouse out of the colum, to the right, in order to see the column for his first scrolling motion.

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#79

Post by Benjoin »

I'd be interested to see if there's any research that would lead you to believe that conversions are increased by this change.

It's an interesting proposition, but I wonder if we're really getting to the core of the stakes here. I'm not a huge fan of the hover state tool tips. It feels like this information design here could be more considered.

If we're going to think of the GIFs as tool tips, then we're talking about them as non-essential information for motivated users. The thing is, I think that works well when it's used sparingly in context, but not for every single list item on page. It's a bit of a pain and it looks messy to read each header and then hover, one-by-one to get more context.

If we made a more firm decision about the role the GIFs play, then we could take a stronger strategic approach to their implementation. If they are essential, they should be part of the displayed design. There are certainly methods to format text and images that make the document easily scannable. That said, I think what might be more applicable here would be a drawer strategy with a section that expands for more information.

At the end of the day, I think what's most relevant is that there are 30+ features to highlight and that seems like way too many for a pricing page!

Re: Every pricing page should have GIFs

#80

Post by marcosdumay »

huhtenberg wrote: post #74
tambourine_man wrote: post #19

>It even works on mobile! Recently I've been having trouble pinpointing sarcasm on the web. That can't be real, can it? Mobile traffic has been larger than desktop for over a decade. We've been hammering mobile-first for almost that long. If that was a joke, sorry it passed right over my head. Also, GIFs… in 2021? We've had , , for what, 15 years?

> Mobile traffic has been larger than desktop for over a decade. For cat videos - most likely. But for sites selling (enterprise) software and services - almost certainly not. > We've been hammering mobile-first for almost that long. Do you work for Google? That's pretty much the only "we" that's been hammering that.

> Do you work for Google? That's pretty much the only "we" that's been hammering that.

Apple and Microsoft too. And Microsoft doesn't even have anything competitive to offer there.

But yeah, the rest of the world has been busy ignoring those 3.

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