Riding the New Silk Road • Hacker News Board

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#21

Post by cocoflunchy » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:10 PM UTC

emilyst wrote: post #19

cocoflunchy wrote: post #15

It's great to try new formats, but the experience is completely broken on my now-slightly-aging Windows laptop. I wish web developer/designers would test their pages on regular hardware instead of 27" iMacs or rMPB... The scrolling is horribly lagging, and the gifs/videos are all black: http://prntscr.com/1gq4he http://prntscr.com/1gq5b6

I have to wonder, which browser?

Chrome latest... Maybe something's wrong with my computer?

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#22

Post by bibinou » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:14 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #14

Wow, I really wanted that to continue the path all the way to Europe. Really just a treat to use. The smoothness of the "gif-like" images just smashes typical video in my mind.

It's a video : http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/07/21/silk-ro...

I have to give them kudos on the JS implementation, it's really smooth.

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#23

Post by easy_rider » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:16 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #5

This is the first time I've seen gif-like videos used in a news article.

I do feel it's a bit distracting from the content for me; not every picture is gif-like, and I found myself scrolling to animated ones. I'd like to know how 'average' people would like the content presentation, from a reader standpoint, not a hacker standpoint.

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#24

Post by Ellipsis753 » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

I actually disliked this page design. The image and text always faded to black before it went off the top of the screen. I am in the habit of moving text to the top of the screen to read it. It kept vanishing as I did so meaning I'd have to move the text I wanted to read down to the middle of the screen.

Did this not happen to anyone else?

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#25

Post by cm2012 » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:20 PM UTC

chime wrote: post #18

cm2012 wrote: post #14

Wow, I really wanted that to continue the path all the way to Europe. Really just a treat to use. The smoothness of the "gif-like" images just smashes typical video in my mind.

They're called http://www.reddit.com/r/cinemagraphs

Thanks for that

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#26

Post by easy_rider » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #14

Wow, I really wanted that to continue the path all the way to Europe. Really just a treat to use. The smoothness of the "gif-like" images just smashes typical video in my mind.

Loved it, and It's awesome that they are not afraid to go out of the box and even get this done right. I think the core of it's success is that as a user you are still in full control of the presentation with the scrollwheel in a natural vertical plane. And then to top it off the content itself is made more pleasant to look at, and the use of the map and smooth loaded video's just delivers an overall immersive experience.

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#27

Post by crgt » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

mynameisvlad wrote: post #8

josephpmay wrote: post #7

This may look great on the desktop, but its pretty horrible on mobile.

Maybe because it wasn't meant to be read from a mobile device? Not everything needs to be mobile.

Point taken, but...

"In the US, 67% of mobile internet users surveyed by Decision Fuel and On Device Research in November 2012 said they mostly or only used mobile, as opposed to the desktop, to go online and surf the web."

If your goal is to connect with people, then ignoring the mobile experience for the sake of optimizing the web experience may be to miss the mark...

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#28

Post by caretcaret » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

Ellipsis753 wrote: post #24

I actually disliked this page design. The image and text always faded to black before it went off the top of the screen. I am in the habit of moving text to the top of the screen to read it. It kept vanishing as I did so meaning I'd have to move the text I wanted to read down to the middle of the screen. Did this not happen to anyone else?

You're meant to read the text alongside its picture, and the text is viewable when the picture is on screen.

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#29

Post by rogerchucker » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:24 PM UTC

easy_rider wrote: post #23

adamnemecek wrote: post #5

This is the first time I've seen gif-like videos used in a news article.

I do feel it's a bit distracting from the content for me; not every picture is gif-like, and I found myself scrolling to animated ones. I'd like to know how 'average' people would like the content presentation, from a reader standpoint, not a hacker standpoint.

The gif made the experience even better for me.

Re: Riding the New Silk Road

#30

Post by rsingel » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:24 PM UTC

cocoflunchy wrote: post #15

It's great to try new formats, but the experience is completely broken on my now-slightly-aging Windows laptop. I wish web developer/designers would test their pages on regular hardware instead of 27" iMacs or rMPB... The scrolling is horribly lagging, and the gifs/videos are all black: http://prntscr.com/1gq4he http://prntscr.com/1gq5b6

I watched on a 5 year old Mac in Chrome. Looked great to me.