Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The making of Medium.com

teehanlax.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 64 posts

Re: The making of Medium.com

#31

Post by colmvp »

markdown wrote: post #28
wiremine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the completely opposite reaction: I thought it the layout was excellent. (Although I agree the reaction on the mouse over was confusing).

The page is beautiful, but is designed for a very narrow range of computing devices. 28MB will cost you a fortune on 3g if you don't have a good plan, and the page will be freeze most devices and be unusable on most of the rest. Might as well have used Flash.

Teehan + Lax is an interactive design agency that does work for multinational corporations. Their site is obviously catered towards clients with big wallets or potential hires. Complaining about bandwidth would make a lot of sense if we were talking about a site catered towards the majority of internet users, like an Amazon, Craigslist, or Reddit. It's like complaining that high end fashion websites don't cater to Internet Explorer 7 when a far greater majority of their users uses view it through iPads or mobile phones.

Re: The making of Medium.com

#32

Post by markdown »

colmvp wrote: post #31
markdown wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The page is beautiful, but is designed for a very narrow range of computing devices. 28MB will cost you a fortune on 3g if you don't have a good plan, and the page will be freeze most devices and be unusable on most of the rest. Might as well have used Flash.

Teehan + Lax is an interactive design agency that does work for multinational corporations. Their site is obviously catered towards clients with big wallets or potential hires. Complaining about bandwidth would make a lot of sense if we were talking about a site catered towards the majority of internet users, like an Amazon, Craigslist, or Reddit. It's like complaining that high end fashion websites don't cater to In…

Have you tried opening the page on a device you consider as worthy of clients with big wallets?.. say, an iPhone, iPad, or top-of-the-line Android?

It completely crashed Chrome on my iPad 3.

Progressive enhancement is a cornerstone of good web design. There is no excuse for this.

Re: The making of Medium.com

#33

Post by ianstormtaylor »

markdown wrote: post #27
dreamdu5t wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium is not a complex webapp. Facebook or gmail is a complex webapp.

Medium is so simple it would be a good candidate for beginner web tutorial examples: Build a Medium clone in Rails in 4hours. Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities".

"Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities"."

This is dumb to the point of annoying. Did you read the article at all? Lots of great design thinking went into Medium. I'm constantly finding new features on Medium that are very well thought out.

Yes they have a huge problem of not letting the authors own their own work, which is why I will never use Medium as-is, but let's not say nothing is special about it either.

Even if the only thing you want to give them is credit for their beautiful typography, you have to at least them give them.

Re: The making of Medium.com

#35

Post by markdown »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #33
markdown wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium is so simple it would be a good candidate for beginner web tutorial examples: Build a Medium clone in Rails in 4hours. Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities".

"Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities"." This is dumb to the point of annoying. Did you read the article at all? Lots of great design thinking went into Medium. I'm constantly finding new features on Medium that are very well thought out. Yes they have a huge problem of not letting the authors own their own work, which is why I will never u…

> let's not say nothing is special about it either.

Now you're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say that.

Do you think great writers all over the world would happily give me their content for free if I designed something better than Medium?

Re: The making of Medium.com

#36

Post by dontAgree »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #33
markdown wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium is so simple it would be a good candidate for beginner web tutorial examples: Build a Medium clone in Rails in 4hours. Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities".

"Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities"." This is dumb to the point of annoying. Did you read the article at all? Lots of great design thinking went into Medium. I'm constantly finding new features on Medium that are very well thought out. Yes they have a huge problem of not letting the authors own their own work, which is why I will never u…

> Lots of great design thinking went into Medium.

Blah blah blah. Yeah right. The design is a clone of svbtle. Lots of ripping off and self promotion went into Medium.

Re: The making of Medium.com

#37

Post by lelandbatey »

markdown wrote: post #32
colmvp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teehan + Lax is an interactive design agency that does work for multinational corporations. Their site is obviously catered towards clients with big wallets or potential hires. Complaining about bandwidth would make a lot of sense if we were talking about a site catered towards the majority of internet users, like an Amazon, Craigslist, or Reddit. It's like complaining that high end fashion websites don't cater to In…

Have you tried opening the page on a device you consider as worthy of clients with big wallets?.. say, an iPhone, iPad, or top-of-the-line Android? It completely crashed Chrome on my iPad 3. Progressive enhancement is a cornerstone of good web design. There is no excuse for this.

Actually, I opened it in Chrome on my SGS3 and experienced no problems at all. The page was snappy and responsive to things like scroll, and it loaded quickly. I actually didn't realize there was any problem at all until I read these comments.

Re: The making of Medium.com

#38

Post by porker »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #33
markdown wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium is so simple it would be a good candidate for beginner web tutorial examples: Build a Medium clone in Rails in 4hours. Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities".

"Medium isn't a big thing because it's special in any way, it's a big thing because it was made by "web celebrities"." This is dumb to the point of annoying. Did you read the article at all? Lots of great design thinking went into Medium. I'm constantly finding new features on Medium that are very well thought out. Yes they have a huge problem of not letting the authors own their own work, which is why I will never u…

And the way they've got inline comments working is beautiful.

Like you I have problems with the lack of ownership, it feels like submitting work to a magazine (which appears to be what they're trying to be). I'm looking forward to polished open source clones being created.

Re: The making of Medium.com

#39

Post by harlanlewis »

yesimahuman wrote: post #18
ValentineC wrote: post #8

Loved the article, not a fan of the 2.4MB video of hands typing on an Apple keyboard [1] I was forced to download. I'm just glad I wasn't on a mobile connection (tethered or otherwise) with a bandwidth cap. I searched for methods to disable MP4 video downloading on both Chrome and Firefox, but they don't appear to work (for Firefox, it was about setting media.autoplay.enabled to false). If anyone knows how I would be…

2.4 MB for a video that is part of what was clearly a designed interactive experience for desktop/laptop doesn't seem like any kind of big deal.

This "designed for laptop" sentiment and (most) of the parallax et al "experience" sites kind of upset me. People use tablets and phones. Acknowledge reality and provide content tolerable to the medium.

I give Teehan+Lax and portfolio sites in general a free pass on this (most important visitors are sitting at desks), but much of the internet seems to willfully disregard audience needs and desires as devices, contexts, and limitations expand.

Post reply on HN