This is my observation: http://imgur.com/zfxvWzV
3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
71–80 of 92 posts
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#72Maybe the original design had the even padding but facebook A/B tested it and found that people are more likely to read the comments below if there is less padding on the bottom? While I agree that is visually looks more balanced, it takes more than my opinion to decide that facebook made a design mistake.
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.
The classic blog post on this: http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html (aka "41 shades of blue").
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#73Somebody should fix his OCD.
It's not a bug -- by any stretch of the imagination.
Unequal padding is a legitimate design decision as any other other.
But I see how it can annoy the hell out of compulsives.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never found a way to fine tune the letter-spacing using css, the smallest unit seems to be 0.07em which is usually too much. Would love to know how to do it if it's possible.
text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; may help in some cases
Is this safe to use now? If I recall correctly this crashed some browsers not too long ago, and could cause some extreme rendering glitches, such as text disappearing.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#75Maybe the original design had the even padding but facebook A/B tested it and found that people are more likely to read the comments below if there is less padding on the bottom? While I agree that is visually looks more balanced, it takes more than my opinion to decide that facebook made a design mistake.
Was thinking the same thing but not for the comments but for the 'liking', 'sharing' and their money making 'promote'.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#76> Can you see how much more crowded the text is in the unfixed version, and how much more balanced it could be?
No. I had to open the two images in separate tabs and rapidly toggle to even see the difference.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#77He 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…
I've never found a way to fine tune the letter-spacing using css, the smallest unit seems to be 0.07em which is usually too much. Would love to know how to do it if it's possible.
Usually you don't want to change letter spacing. It should be part of the font itself. By changing it via CSS letter-spacing, you alter the font's built-in spacing. This is particularly noticeable with letter combinations with very tight kerning, like 'AV' or 'WA' or 'li li' or 'ni in'. While most web fonts do not have the vast kerning tables that a professional typeset font will have, the built-in kerning is usually leagues above what you can accomplish with letter-spacing.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#78Padding is not always supposed to be "balanced". It makes we we for some sections to be closer or further to other sections. In this case, he extra padding probably looks very slightly better. But I don't think it's the way it is from lack of love.
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#79vk.com seems to get both things right (judging paddings visually)
Re: 3px of padding makes all the difference in the world
#80This is beginning to remind me of the colorists in Hollywood who color-time feature film. They will obsess day in and day out about the subtleties of a particular hue of some background out-of-focus trinket. Complete and utter minutiae.
I'm sorry, but as an average reader with decent visual tastes, I can safely say that those 3 pixels are not relevant to me.