How the Web Became Unreadable

It'd be nice if we saw more work on the part of browsers to just force the text into readable formats. iOS Reader and the Android "mobile view" are steps in the right direction, although not specifically intended for this use case.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#5

Post by timup » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

Good read. Will credit Apple for beginning to move away from this trend. Take the Apple Music app in the iOS10 release...thick, chunky, bold headers, much better contrast.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#6

Post by amelius » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

We need some strong AI to strip away the ads, and extract only the main text, then format that text using the reader's preferences.

OCR 2.0, if you will.

Caveat: it may kill the advertisement industry.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#7

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

It’s true that many designers tend to look at text more like a texture. Instead of making it large and distinct they will make it small and light colored when it's in fact the only valuable thing on the screen.

It's an unfortunate consequence of so much design today going minimal and more typographic, which makes it's hard to differentiate elements any other way than to start evening out the contrast. If everything that is text was just black you would loose the hierarchy.

There er of course plenty of ways to get around it and most experienced designers know how to deal with it. I don't think it's going to be a lasting problem though.

Also important to notice that retina screens make a big difference between what is readable and not. You can get away with much more finesse when you design for retina screens. And I think a lot of designers unfortunately use only that when they design.

If you look at print typography you will find a lot of small text sizes because print is crisp enough to be readable. So technology will take care of most of it IMO.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#8

Post by sotojuan » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

taprun wrote: post #2

I'll just add this link[0], because I'm sure someone is going to mention it. [0] http://contrastrebellion.com/

Heh, I love how so many tech and design things are "manifestos" or "rebellions".

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#9

Post by tdb7893 » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 2:08 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #6

We need some strong AI to strip away the ads, and extract only the main text, then format that text using the reader's preferences. OCR 2.0, if you will. Caveat: it may kill the advertisement industry.

killing the ad industry means killing the current web unless there is another revenue stream

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#10

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 2:08 PM UTC

"between ambient light and backlight leakage, by the time a color makes it to a screen, not even plain black (#000) is pure; instead it has become a grayer shade."

This is changing. The best phone displays display "pure" black. If you open a black image on the screen, you cannot tell if the screen is on or off, even in pitch darkness.

I love pure blacks in my apps and Web pages, contrary to the author.