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This is a web page

justinjackson.ca

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Re: This is a web page

#51

Post by cma »

bad_user wrote: post #43
ignostic wrote: post #37

Sure, simple text is fine for a blog. But if I'm selling something like a piece of art it's all about the images: large, high-quality images from multiple angles. Pinterest wouldn't be called minimalist, but it does a damn fine job of accomplishing its goals. Design should help accomplish business (or personal) goals. We run into trouble when we adopt some sort of "minimalism, always, ever, for everything" dogma.

> We run into trouble when we adopt some sort of "minimalism, always, ever, for everything" dogma. Evidence? Examples?

Unix-style "bunch of small processes communicating through pipes" model when applied in inappropriate domains.

Re: This is a web page

#52

Post by inthewind »

I think you've got to question the definition of "web design". I'd argue that the text is framed content and is part of the design.

The post at least highlights that 'web design' is somewhat of a distraction.

There is so much (unnecessary?) labour involved in framing the content by posturing programmers (lost down some rabbit hole) and anal pixel pushers that you could easily forget that to many: the content is what matters.

Getting your head around HTML, publishing and hosting is still not that trivial. That's why people take to something like Facebook, or sharing photos via Instagram via their mobile phones.

That's not to detract from the beauty and the 'miracle' of web publishing.

Re: This is a web page

#54

Post by Nux »

I'm not obsessed with fancy designs and scripts. Have a look at my home page.

What I'm obsessed with is the fact every god damned web site on the internet includes google-analytics stuff! You would have made your point had you left it out.

Re: This is a web page

#55

Post by devilshaircut »

bad_user wrote: post #43
ignostic wrote: post #37

Sure, simple text is fine for a blog. But if I'm selling something like a piece of art it's all about the images: large, high-quality images from multiple angles. Pinterest wouldn't be called minimalist, but it does a damn fine job of accomplishing its goals. Design should help accomplish business (or personal) goals. We run into trouble when we adopt some sort of "minimalism, always, ever, for everything" dogma.

> We run into trouble when we adopt some sort of "minimalism, always, ever, for everything" dogma. Evidence? Examples?

Is it not self-obvious that if every page attempting to serve up content similar to that in the OP (pictureless editorial), the web would be bleak and characterless?

Not debating the effectiveness of that kind of design, but rather pointing out the obviousness that this sort of anti-"always, ever" statement is easily validated.

Re: This is a web page

#57

Post by monkeyspaw »

dreen wrote: post #36
mijustin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 4KB!

It made me look - the front page of HN is currently 7.8KB, and this is: - 1.6% of yahoo.com size (477KB) - 18.9% of reddit.com size (41.2 KB) - 23.6% of stackoverflow.com size (33KB) and - 108.3% of gmail.com size (7.2KB) - 520% of google.com size (1.5KB) - 866.6% of your blog post size (908B) so this gives some perspective. edit: the most surprising is gmail.com for me, id have thought they load tons of js in the ba…

How did you do these measurements? I would be shocked if the entire gmail webapp is 7.2KB.

Just looking at the Network tab in Chrome's inspector, I see a lot more than 7KB being transferred. It seems the main page on gmail is just loading the other j.s. files.

Re: This is a web page

#58

Post by Kurtz79 »

ignostic wrote: post #37

Sure, simple text is fine for a blog. But if I'm selling something like a piece of art it's all about the images: large, high-quality images from multiple angles. Pinterest wouldn't be called minimalist, but it does a damn fine job of accomplishing its goals. Design should help accomplish business (or personal) goals. We run into trouble when we adopt some sort of "minimalism, always, ever, for everything" dogma.

I think the author clearly states: "Think about the words first, than the rest".

I didn't read it as a call to minimalism, more so as "It does not matter how flashy your site is, if in the end you have really nothing to say."

It's hard to disagree, honestly (it's also plain common sense, nothing groundbreaking, although the minimalist presentation really helps driving home the point).

Re: This is a web page

#59

Post by rkuykendall-com »

This was a bit of an obsession of mine ever since I saw Coding Horror a few years ago. I had seen a lot of extremely minimalist designs, but they were all doing things to accomplish that minimalism. As a developer though, you have a nagging feeling in the back of your brain saying "that's a lie, it's not simple, it's very complicated, it just looks simple." Coding Horror is complex, but it was plain enough for me to imagine it with even less structure.

I decided to stick as close to plain HTML for my personal website as possible. The problem is, plain HTML is ugly. So instead, I tried to imagine what the default style of HTML would be if it was created today.

I've am still far from that ideal, but it is a work in progress: http://rkuykendall.com/

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