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Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

mohkohn.co.uk

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Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#211

Post by squidbeak »

simpaticoder wrote: post #174
OskarS wrote: post #165

As a non-web dev, I have a question about this part: > There was a sad coda; as is the way of contract work, I moved on. I explained what I had built to my replacement, that it always worked even without javascript. He was appalled and said, “but that’s a lot more work for us.” Why is it more work? The approach described in the article seems honestly reasonably simple: just write the standard components for the form,…

Simpler doesn't mean easier. Consider a chef who at their previous job started using a wood-burning stove. This is an objectively simpler tool than a gas or electric stove, yet it would be very difficult (even impossible, depending on local architecture and regulations) for a new kitchen to add one.

I'm interested to hear what architecture and regulations prevent the use of something that is foundational to web develpment and backwards compatible by design? Which also, by the way, comes with the advantage of not incinerating other parts of the restaurant (accessibility, user experience...), forcing expensive countermeasures or total rebuilds of the things destroyed every time you turn it on.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#212

Post by arnorhs »

This post is good, and it's a great example of taking a problem and solving it with the appropriate tech with the right amount of depth. It really helps to have full domain knowledge of your customers as well.

However, I do not like how it is framed as "simple html is better than react" - because you could just as well have told the same story as a react developer.

(Nb. I could go on forever about the complexities and intricacies of storing things session based on a server vs browser based and etc - and lots of other things that were skimmed over in this article, but that would be too long)

All of those things that are simple in html are also simple in react.

It's literally the same code - there's nothing preventing you from using browser based html validation in react - all the same code that gets complicated in react (overly complicated validation logic) also ends up being complicated in astro - they have their own thing around schema validation etc and integrating it within an astro site means you have to integrate their client router etc etc.. so it's very easy to go overly-complicated there as well.

The comparison is also with an off-shore team doing development for you with probably incomplete knowledge and the way projects are structured they have an incentive to create the solution as fast as possible, in as little time as possible, with the biggest amount of complexity as possible.

The last point is devious - it's not necessarily that the contractor does this by design, but the incentive structure makes it so something that's overly complicated actually benefits them, so they don't have a direct incentive to go with something simple.

Anyways, a simple solution, directly addressing the problem at hand is always better - no matter what stack you pick.

(I'd like to say that I don't have anything against Astro's form validation, I was just trying to highlight how there's more to it than "native html browser validation")

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#213

Post by Aurornis »

onion2k wrote: post #138

This isn't "We replaced a React app with an HTML form and performance improved." It's "We replaced a bad web page with a good web page and performance improved." Attributing this to the technology driving the browser experience is silly. You can make a brilliant user experience with React. You can make a terrible website with plain HTML. The improvement comes from the change design, not tech.

> The improvement comes from the change design, not tech.

You could argue that the constraints of using HTML-first (as they call it) helped them stay away from the bad patterns they were using before.

But you’re right: The user change came from fixing the design, not the technology used.

This is a lot like those bad resume bullet points where someone tries to claim an increase in business was due to their code change. “Increased visitor count 100% by rewriting website to be HTML-first”. Then when you ask them about that point they concede that the entire site was redesigned to fix some design problems or add a feature and that’s what drove the visitor increase.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#214

Post by lproven »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #153
calvinmorrison wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ATM Machine

The La Brea Tar Pits => The the tar tar pits My favorite from Southern California.

OK, I have to admit, that one I didn't know.

It's only a matter of time until someone posts "Torpenhow Hill" -- which does not exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#215

Post by concinds »

chao- wrote: post #198
OskarS wrote: post #165

As a non-web dev, I have a question about this part: > There was a sad coda; as is the way of contract work, I moved on. I explained what I had built to my replacement, that it always worked even without javascript. He was appalled and said, “but that’s a lot more work for us.” Why is it more work? The approach described in the article seems honestly reasonably simple: just write the standard components for the form,…

Starting a few years ago, I realized some junior and medior engineers never once considered the possibility of building a website (app, experience, etc.) in anything other than a heavy SPA framework. But they're not stupid people! If you directly asked "Can you build a website without React?" they know the answer is obviously "Yes." However, if you asked them to build a new website, they would unthinkingly start a ne…

You are far too empathetic to them. They should not hold the jobs they have.

These are the people writing React monstrosities for government benefit websites, and testing them on fast iPhones and fast 4G, without realizing that every page load for actual users will take 30 seconds on their old $200 Android on 3G, and users won’t complete the form.

It’s a culture of not giving a shit, that’s the deeper issue.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#216

Post by ryukoposting »

breakwaterlabs wrote: post #160
motoboi wrote: post #132

Old people. They exist. Not even that old. 60 year people can't user your fancy site because then don't have an internal model of how a computer works. You know that when pressing a button a hidden engine runs in the backend (or something runs in the backend). You expect an answer and if the expectation do not match the result, the model in your mind creates an hypothesis about what maybe happened and iterate from th…

> Old people don't have that because they Aren't insane . When did the industry put the onus on the user to understand how the computer works? What happened to the old days of Xerox PARC's HCI studies putting the user first? The computer is in service of the user, not the other way around! If I need to build a mental turing machine to understand your application, it is a bad application . It is rather the engineer's…

As a firmware engineer, my philosophy is this: if I'm doing my job properly, the user should never even know I exist.

Maybe this isn't applicable to all software devs. If you make web apps, users actually see your UI, they click an icon or type in a URL and hit enter with the intent of using the thing you made. With firmware, that's not how it works.

When you hit the "mute" button on your laptop keyboard, it should just do it. The audio should turn off and the little LED should light up. If that fails, even once, the mirage is broken. The user is forced to think about the fallibility of firmware, which is a word they might not even know, and still struggle to conceptualize if they do. I think it also has a lasting effect on the way someone thinks about the pruduct: Is this going to work today? Why did that happen? Was that a virus? So on.

OTA firmware updates have the same problem. Most users don't know what the hell firmware is. All they know is their computer is showing a loading screen they've never seen before. It's unfamiliar and weird.

Like I said, I don't know if this mindset translates perfectly to other fields, but the priorities that fall out of my philosophy certainly apply. Reliability over everything, and get it right the first time.

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#217

Post by neya »

Sadly, this is the story of nearly every React project I've reluctantly inherited. In my experience, it's because React is not opinionated like its peers Vue and Svelte. So, a bunch of devs will use something for state management and and another team will use something else completely. Eventually both teams leave after making a mess. But, if you look at the graphs and numbers that MBAs chase, they will all look like everyone was productive until the very last minute. The ultimate casualty is unfortunately the user. Even Facebook hasn't figured out React across their properties. Just use Instagram / Facebook on the web. Bunch of spinners to load a static list of items in a drop down menu. Not even joking, click on the bhamburger menu on Instagram web. It makes a dozen requests, shows you a loading skeleton and takes 5 seconds before you can see a finite list of menu items. Ironically Facebook was super popular in the 2014s because they didnt have much React based BS going on. Everything was just good old hyperlinks.

If the creators of React haven't figured it out, what makes you think you can?

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#219

Post by black_puppydog »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #178
motoboi wrote: post #132

Old people. They exist. Not even that old. 60 year people can't user your fancy site because then don't have an internal model of how a computer works. You know that when pressing a button a hidden engine runs in the backend (or something runs in the backend). You expect an answer and if the expectation do not match the result, the model in your mind creates an hypothesis about what maybe happened and iterate from th…

I would argue it's not even old people. Most people do not have any understanding of what's going on when you click a button. Website either acts as expected, or it doesn't "work" If the button doesn't work, the average user is going to say "this most be broken" and then use a competitor (or contact your support). That's why it's really important to error-proof one's design (eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke…

Yep, I changed town a few years ago and my new social circles are mostly like that.

Either it works right away without any further questions, or they'll not do it.

Sadly, also if they can't do it on their phone, they will not do it. It's actually very hard to get people motivated to do anything that has to do with sitting down at an actual computer anymore. Which is a bit hard if you're in a very technical political advocacy group, kinda makes me the guy to do everything remotely complex... XD

Re: Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight

#220

Post by oldandboring »

seangrogg wrote: post #199
OskarS wrote: post #165

As a non-web dev, I have a question about this part: > There was a sad coda; as is the way of contract work, I moved on. I explained what I had built to my replacement, that it always worked even without javascript. He was appalled and said, “but that’s a lot more work for us.” Why is it more work? The approach described in the article seems honestly reasonably simple: just write the standard components for the form,…

As a web dev a lot of this is simply ongoing maintenance of a largely unknown quantity. Most web devs know React and use it extensively; Astro is something they'll have to learn on the job or hire for specifically. It's akin to writing a backend in Haskell. Chances are you could write something performant that leverages FP in a way that serves as a magic bullet for your domain. But now everyone after you needs to lea…

> Astro is something they'll have to learn on the job or hire for specifically.

Before LLMs I would have agreed.

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