It must be a really quiet day for this to make the front page! I can't believe I just wasted time reading that.
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3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
21–30 of 92 posts
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#22It's always tricky to adjust the padding/margin values because you need to take into account each case in which these 3 added pixels will have an impact. Maybe the style applied to this particular box is shared with other elements or maybe this box is used in other contexts where 3 pixels more will look odd. And I guess that for a website as dense as Facebook, it's easy to try to adjust something while breaking somet…
Facebook is probably built in a much mote modular way. I doubt fixing it would break anything else. Facebook engineers should be able to figure this out very quickly.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#23He has a point that many interface designers will appreciate and others rankle at as nit-picking. But I was struck by the irony of this particular observation being made via a blog that uses a body typeface with ever-so-slightly but definitely too-narrow tracking (letter spacing). Or maybe the kerning data is off. I would have it loosening by about 1/200em overall, with the most noticeable improvement becoming appare…
To be fair, the number of users that read his blog vs. the number of users that use Facebook is a little bit different, and the amount of attention that should be devoted to each should vary accordingly.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#24He has a point that many interface designers will appreciate and others rankle at as nit-picking. But I was struck by the irony of this particular observation being made via a blog that uses a body typeface with ever-so-slightly but definitely too-narrow tracking (letter spacing). Or maybe the kerning data is off. I would have it loosening by about 1/200em overall, with the most noticeable improvement becoming appare…
To be fair, the number of users that read his blog vs. the number of users that use Facebook is a little bit different, and the amount of attention that should be devoted to each should vary accordingly.
"His blog" is the template for the entire Posthaven network.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#25I have noticed that most flame wars happen over small things; not simply bc they matter, but bc the opinions are so simple that everyone has one.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a perfectly reasonable explanation that is often overlooked by designers. This also happens to be why I don't particularly love design anymore. What looks right and what converts the best are two different animals, and I don't like purposely creating ugly shit with my name on it.
This is often a result of designers failing to step outside their "designer window", if you will, and step into the users' shoes. It's possible to make something look right and translate that into conversions if you have enough of an outside perspective. That said, it's pretty easy to get too involved in your own work to notice a bigger picture so breaks to step back are highly recommended.
When I was a/b testing UI designs for a stable of eCommerce sites, quite often the blatantly fugly design would convert much better. Especially for low-price-driven sites. My personal theory was that people figure the unpolished, crappy looking site is more bargain-driven (kinda like a dingy dollar store in real life).
Sticking a giant firetruck-red "CONVERT" button surrounded by flames and rainbows really does sell better. But boy does it look awful.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a perfectly reasonable explanation that is often overlooked by designers. This also happens to be why I don't particularly love design anymore. What looks right and what converts the best are two different animals, and I don't like purposely creating ugly shit with my name on it.
This is often a result of designers failing to step outside their "designer window", if you will, and step into the users' shoes. It's possible to make something look right and translate that into conversions if you have enough of an outside perspective. That said, it's pretty easy to get too involved in your own work to notice a bigger picture so breaks to step back are highly recommended.
I am glad you pointed this out, your premise is a quintessential example of "UX is not UI."
It's not the visual or web designers primary job to A/B test or step into the users shoes on every detail, that's what a responsible and valuable UX person should be doing (note I didn't say UX designer).
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#28I don't think it makes any difference.
I've spent about a minute on comparing both pictures to see "how much more crowded the text is in the unfixed version"©
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#29I found this really annoying for some time now, too. I hope with someone like Garry being vocal about this issue Facebook will act and fix it.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#30He has a point that many interface designers will appreciate and others rankle at as nit-picking. But I was struck by the irony of this particular observation being made via a blog that uses a body typeface with ever-so-slightly but definitely too-narrow tracking (letter spacing). Or maybe the kerning data is off. I would have it loosening by about 1/200em overall, with the most noticeable improvement becoming appare…
Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into this. I'd been wondering about that myself.