Sub-pixel anti-aliasing doesn't seem to work on your site. I find that really annoying. I am using Google Chrome 25 on OS X 10.8.2.
Stop Using Small Font Sizes
71–80 of 126 posts
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strong point you're making here. Pantone-calibrated monitors only make sense when you'll be doing actual printing. A webdesigner using Pantone shades for a website is just being a delusional fool.
With the quality of the monitors nowadays, and standard profiles, it's not that far off. We're not in the nineties, monitor technology wise.
Actually, I've heard people saying that CRT screens were better than LCD when it came to colors. A couple of problems that LCD monitors might have:
- low viewing angle
- color shifting if they're using a TN or MVA/PVA panel [1]
- loss of dark details for MVA/PVA panels [2]
- 6 bits per color channel like the pretty recent Dell U2412M monitor for example [3]
Sure if you're using a good (and expensive) monitor like Dell U2410 (comes precalibrated) or HP LP2475w you won't have these problems, but not everyone has them. Let's also not forget laptops which have crappy displays most of the time.
[1] http://lcdtech.no-ip.info/en/tests/color-shift.htm
[2] http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034585910&%3bpos...
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strong point you're making here. Pantone-calibrated monitors only make sense when you'll be doing actual printing. A webdesigner using Pantone shades for a website is just being a delusional fool.
With the quality of the monitors nowadays, and standard profiles, it's not that far off. We're not in the nineties, monitor technology wise.
I agree there are concerns with readability at certain LCD viewing angles. I often test my projects on a range of "run of the mill" monitors and more often than not I find that the contrast is horrid (at any angle) although it looks perfect on my setup. Thus, I usually increase styling contrast more than what I feel is necessary, in order to ensure an acceptable experience for all users.
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#74I don't mind small font sizes as long as you don't do anything to break zoom in the browser. What is killing me a lot more lately is the trend towards extremely low contrast sites, like white backgrounds with almost-white text. This is starting to be everywhere recently and it is horrible. I'm sure that design looks great on your Pantone-calibrated monitor, designer, but on mine I can barely even see there are words…
I haven't seen anything that breaks zoom in the browser (do you have an example?) but many of the responsive-type sites break the pinch zooming on mobile which is extremely annoying, especially if they have images that hang off the viewable area of the screen.
Google Docs doesn't behave well at all if you zoom. It will even warn you.
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for pointing it out, I didn't see that article. After having read that article, I'll concede the fundamental argument is the same. I don't have a smartphone, however. The only place I will ever read something is on my desktop computer, and that's what I want. Media queries or "mobile-first design" can be used to solve the issue from both sides of that complaint.
Your site is barely readable and unzoomable on my phone where I would normally read a short blog post from an unknown but potentially interesting site. It's a very real glass house situation.
Perhaps it's a failing of your browser? I've set nothing to prevent you from zooming.
Also, what makes it unreadable? I'm aware that I still have some work to do on the stylesheet. I don't have a mobile device, a small-ish screen, or a retina display so my testing of devices is limited. Constructive feedback welcome :)
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#76I don't mind small font sizes as long as you don't do anything to break zoom in the browser. What is killing me a lot more lately is the trend towards extremely low contrast sites, like white backgrounds with almost-white text. This is starting to be everywhere recently and it is horrible. I'm sure that design looks great on your Pantone-calibrated monitor, designer, but on mine I can barely even see there are words…
While agree that low-contrast is a problem, it's rather uncommon still except on web designer's sites (ironically enough). We may read a lot of them, but overall they're a drop in the bucket. The web has categorically low font size however, so the font size really is the bigger fish.
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
How wide is your screen (in px)? Because the max width of my layout is around the old 760px standard. You should be able to see everything (even if, as you say, it's a bit too large). On the other hand, it's a pretty valid critique. To be honest I forgot that there are 11 inch screens (or, screens that are larger than phones but smaller than 17inch desktop monitors). I'm not on any sort of a big screen. And indeed, m…
Not width I'm talking about (that's fine), it's the height. It's funny, because screen height shouldn't affect "readability" (other than making you scroll more often), but with these large-font blogs/sites, they give me a certain feeling of "claustrophobia" -- that I can't see a couple paragraphs' worth to come, or can't see the last couple paragraphs I read. I think it might be that it prevents me from being able to…
I'll take that into consideration, thanks for the feedback :)
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#78I recommend to check these two articles by Oliver Reichenstein about this topic, one of them he wrote about 7 years ago http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r http://informationarchitects.net/blog/responsive-typography-...
Thanks!
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the quality of the monitors nowadays, and standard profiles, it's not that far off. We're not in the nineties, monitor technology wise.
Actually, I've heard people saying that CRT screens were better than LCD when it came to colors. A couple of problems that LCD monitors might have: - low viewing angle - color shifting if they're using a TN or MVA/PVA panel [1] - loss of dark details for MVA/PVA panels [2] - 6 bits per color channel like the pretty recent Dell U2412M monitor for example [3] Sure if you're using a good (and expensive) monitor like Del…
A given CRT would be more consistent from different angles, but, having been there and tuned color on both CRTs and LCDs, the latter tend to be far more consistent between different displays. Also over time.
There are still vendor differences, and Mac vs. Windows color temperature differs as well.
Re: Stop Using Small Font Sizes
#80It's great to see this on HN where there are literally fonts as low as 7pt being used... Everyone keeps saying that it's fine as long as zoom functions correctly. Well it's also fine to use a font size widely accepted as readable. 7pt? Really? Why? Because zoom works? I know a lot of people who read HN that use style bot to increase the font size. To act like this isn't an issue seems really weird to me. Ctrl+- is th…
Experimentally I just tried ctrl--. HN looks great, now I can read even more than before.
Put the default at a happy medium. That probably doesn't mean optimized for 24" displays.