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This is a web page

justinjackson.ca

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Re: This is a web page

#131

Post by gyepi »

epo wrote: post #119
adventured wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone can communicate in words? That isn't true, unfortunately. I don't see why you even said that, only to negate it at the bottom. More people can digest a photo than can read a specific language, by a radical margin.

All of your contributions seem to denote someone who doesn't really have anything worthwhile to convey in writing. Try to communicate "Hire me, I'm experienced." in a photo. Share that on Facebook.

> All of your contributions seem to denote someone who doesn't really have anything worthwhile to convey in writing.

Please refrain from this sort of ad hominem response, it adds nothing to conversation.

Re: This is a web page

#132

Post by zanny »

adventured wrote: post #123
zanny wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of words, hyper text markup language has a lot of tags for words (more than I could count on two hands) vs two hands worth for images, pictures, video, etc combined. Throw in CSS (which makes words pretty) and you have a lot of stuff to do with words, and not that much to do with arrays of pixels or sine waves.

Ok, but I'm not sure how the quantity of tags determines the value of the content contained. I can vary a graphic element or photo a near infinite number of ways prior to inserting it via one tag. I wouldn't say that argues in favor of imagery over text, or vice versa, however.

I'm not arguing the value of the content, just the original intent. HTML was just meant to be a markup document language to display rich text over http.

Re: This is a web page

#133

Post by morsch »

adventured wrote: post #108
morsch wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is that it's a communication system that facilitates communication amongst everyone . And everyone can communicate in words, typed out[0]. And not everyone can produce or effectively communicate using beautiful video, high quality graphics and, I guess, responsive design. [1] It's interesting to wonder what the next-common "wide area" communication mode is -- photos are widely shared, but is there a…

Everyone can communicate in words? That isn't true, unfortunately. I don't see why you even said that, only to negate it at the bottom. More people can digest a photo than can read a specific language, by a radical margin.

I agree that an individual pictures or movie has the potential to be understood by a larger number of people. Even by a "radical" margin. :) However, that's not a unique feature of the Internet, it's similar in all means of communication. In media older than the Internet, pictures and movies have had an impact across linguistic communities.

But the vast majority of pictures and movies aren't the My Lai photographs or the moon landing. Most pictures and movies just don't communicate a whole lot of thought, it's amazing when they do, which is why photography and movie-making and music are such arts! That's because the vast majority of everyone doesn't have the capability, opportunity or sheer (in fail videos: bad) luck to take a picture or a movie like that.

In other words, visual arts might be a more universally accessible when it comes to receiving side, but they are much less universally accessible when it comes to the producing side.

Re: This is a web page

#134

Post by pnathan »

kragen wrote: post #106
adventured wrote: post #69

"At it's heart, web design should be about words." No. The web is not just a place for text / words, that is not its heart and soul, and therefore neither is that the case for web design. It really never has been. I see no great argument in favor of words being the core over any other form of expression. Today's bandwidth more than allows for beautiful video, animation, high quality graphics and photos, etc. Or low k…

It's unfortunate that the article doesn't try to actually make the case for the primacy of linguistic communication, and I'm not going to take the time to do it here either. I'll just say that while I agree with you that a diversity of media is better than just one medium, I spent my childhood, before the Web was built, reading books instead of watching TV on purpose, not by accident. Books without pictures. And it's…

Do you have a good citation for the primacy of linguistic communication?

I have become profoundly convinced over the last 15 years that words (& to an extent, text), is the generally best mode of communication of meaning, beating out things such as video, images, smells, etc. But I've been generally unable to articulate that idea cleanly and persuasively.

Re: This is a web page

#135

Post by monkeyspaw »

dreen wrote: post #128
monkeyspaw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same as you, even on disabled cache its about the same, thats why I was surprised. edit: OK so in Incognito Mode i got 17KB which is a bit more believable, but why doesnt it show that in normal mode with disabled cache?

When I use incognito mode, I see about 200k of Javascript. I wonder why we're getting different sizes.

The largest file I see is the ?shva=1 /mail/u/0 file, clocking in at 173KB.

Re: This is a web page

#136

Post by adventured »

pdpi wrote: post #129
adventured wrote: post #69

"At it's heart, web design should be about words." No. The web is not just a place for text / words, that is not its heart and soul, and therefore neither is that the case for web design. It really never has been. I see no great argument in favor of words being the core over any other form of expression. Today's bandwidth more than allows for beautiful video, animation, high quality graphics and photos, etc. Or low k…

> I see no great argument in favour of words being the core over any other form of expression. I think the article zooms in on text for "shock value", if you will, but there's a deeper point. I trust you're not on Hacker News because of the aesthetically pleasing orange bar at the top of the page, you're here for the news, and the discussion. And that's what the article is getting at. We get so wrapped up in the tech…

Right, and there's a very strong argument to be made for a text focus on Hacker News. As I said, it depends on what the purpose of a site / web page / etc. is.

The point was that words are not the heart and soul of web design. There's nothing that argues in favor of an inherent bias to words over other forms of expression. That's my position.

Re: This is a web page

#137

Post by csomar »

Sorry, but this is not true in many dimensions:

1. He doesn't have an RSS feed. That's a medium many people use it to connect.

2. He doesn't have a mailchimp (or other) list to subscribe to. That's another medium people use.

3. He didn't optimize for Google. That's a huge medium people use to reach content. (he uses analytics, though. guess why)

4. Font size is set in pixels. This is the wrong way to do it if you want to be optimized for reading. You should set it in "em" to have the size of the browser default. Another reason why you need a professional to design a site.

It's true that we are sometimes (or in many occasions) taking the features to the extreme. But there is a reason why they are there. That's the new web. Learn how to use the feature to improve the experience, and not to make it worse.

Not using is just moving us backward.

Re: This is a web page

#138

Post by anigbrowl »

devilshaircut wrote: post #79
anigbrowl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the web is awash in ugly junk. Whenever I go to a machine that doesn't have adblock, Ghostery etc., I am increasingly horrified. It's like a highway with so many billboards that you can't see the direction signs, never mind enjoy the view. That or some sort of infinite supermarket magazine rack. I HATE the way web design has evolved. I want to make the design choices at my end, not have them imposed on me or…

Having webpages that are not bleak and characterless is not a resignation to having webpages that are like highways with unending billboards.

I don't find text to be bleak or characterless; if it needs design that badly, then it's not well-written. And judging by the audience for things like ReadItLater and so on, I'm not alone. I just want the option to read text the way I want, not how someone thinks I ought to be see it, which is more often about getting me to look that providing me with a comfortable reading experience.

Re: This is a web page

#139

Post by swamp40 »

Anyone else think the referenced 37Signals "Know Your Company" idea was interesting?

I wondered how it worked w/o asking employees to sign up for anything, and this is what I found:

"What they came up with was Know Your Company, which poses one question to all employees via email, three days a week.

The queries vary from day to day. Responding is optional, and answers are attached to employee names.

Workers can also choose whether they want their replies shared with the whole group."

Re: This is a web page

#140

Post by simpsond »

adventured wrote: post #69

"At it's heart, web design should be about words." No. The web is not just a place for text / words, that is not its heart and soul, and therefore neither is that the case for web design. It really never has been. I see no great argument in favor of words being the core over any other form of expression. Today's bandwidth more than allows for beautiful video, animation, high quality graphics and photos, etc. Or low k…

Agreed. At it's heart, web design should be about conveying information effectively.
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