Responsive Text • Hacker News Board

Re: Responsive Text

#21

Post by indubitably » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:04 AM UTC

One problem is that you’re delivering all the content to the mobile device anyway.

Re: Responsive Text

#22

Post by tumblestrap » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:06 AM UTC

I could see this as a useful tool to create "skim" and "full text" versions of content, especially reference material.

Re: Responsive Text

#23

Post by peterhajas » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:13 AM UTC

It's like the OS X Summarize service, but on a webpage :)

Re: Responsive Text

#24

Post by joejohnson » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:15 AM UTC

magicofpi wrote: post #4

This reminds moe of Joe Davis' Telescopic Text: http://www.telescopictext.com/ . Assuming you see this on a desktop computer, it's exactly the opposite of Frankie's responsive text: instead of gradually reducing the amount of information, it gradually increases it.

That's really clever. I would like to read news articles written like this: you just click on the parts you want elaborate on.

Re: Responsive Text

#25

Post by GuiA » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:17 AM UTC

peterhajas wrote: post #23

It's like the OS X Summarize service, but on a webpage :)

Has anyone actually ever used this service to any productive end? I never saw the appeal (and don't understand how it got there in the first place), but maybe it's extremely useful to some niche category of users.

Re: Responsive Text

#26

Post by koenigdavidmj » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:22 AM UTC

The Boston Globe's home page (http://bostonglobe.com/) does something similar with columns.

Re: Responsive Text

#27

Post by madrox » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:27 AM UTC

ot wrote: post #9

I may have a problem with OCD, but I would hate the idea that some content is hidden to me just because I'm browsing with the wrong screen/window size. Hiding redundant elements, navigational bars, maybe images, etc... is fine, but I'm definitely not comfortable with the idea of hiding content based on context.

I don't imagine this would be applied to news articles or blog posts. I could see this applied to, say, instructions or travel directions...

Re: Responsive Text

#28

Post by bmuenzenmeyer » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:39 AM UTC

umm, http://www.abookapart.com/products/responsive-web-design

Re: Responsive Text

#29

Post by uptown » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:41 AM UTC

A good implementation I've seen of something like this is a responsive version of data tables. Essentially, the data in the table is prioritized, and shown or hidden based on the available real-estate, along with the ability to override the defaults.

Demo available here: http://filamentgroup.com/examples/rwd-table-patterns/

Re: Responsive Text

#30

Post by alttag » Thu, Feb 16, 2012, 1:43 AM UTC

After thinking about it for a moment, my response is this: if the same idea can be delivered in fewer (words|paragraphs), then show the reduced form.

Tighter writing is clearer, and thus easier to read. If you can trim, you should be doing it anyway; leaving the extra amounts to cruft in most cases.