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Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

davidmckinney.com

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Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#11

Post by discovr »

shmerl wrote: post #8
geoka9 wrote: post #7

Another web design site, another page that's almost impossible to read due to washed out text. Guys, do you test your sites on anything other than Macs with "retina" displays? For example, I maxed out the brightness setting on my Thinkpad x60 and the text is still barely legible. Granted, this TP has a very average display, but do you really want to limit your audience to Mac users?

Yeah, gray font on the white background is not pleasant. For a page which talks about books like "The Design of Everyday Things" it's kind of a fail ;)

try it now. how is that on your screen./

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#12

Post by shmerl »

discovr wrote: post #11
shmerl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, gray font on the white background is not pleasant. For a page which talks about books like "The Design of Everyday Things" it's kind of a fail ;)

try it now. how is that on your screen./

Looks better now, but I'd still make the font a bit larger.

That's how it looks in my browser:

http://freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/cyqjo.png

(Firefox 18 / KDE 4.8).

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#13

Post by [deleted] »

geoka9 wrote: post #7

Another web design site, another page that's almost impossible to read due to washed out text. Guys, do you test your sites on anything other than Macs with "retina" displays? For example, I maxed out the brightness setting on my Thinkpad x60 and the text is still barely legible. Granted, this TP has a very average display, but do you really want to limit your audience to Mac users?

[deleted]

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#15

Post by ekianjo »

geoka9 wrote: post #7

Another web design site, another page that's almost impossible to read due to washed out text. Guys, do you test your sites on anything other than Macs with "retina" displays? For example, I maxed out the brightness setting on my Thinkpad x60 and the text is still barely legible. Granted, this TP has a very average display, but do you really want to limit your audience to Mac users?

"Universal Design" :)

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#16

Post by ekianjo »

brendoncrawford wrote: post #6

Great books, but why is it necessary that every hacker should read them? How are these relevant to the hacker who writes his own Linux device drivers? Or the hacker building an open source voice recognition library? There are plenty of hackers who do amazing work that has nothing to do with visual design.

Because the author of the post probably has a very narrow vision of what the term "hacker" means. And putting "every" and "should" in the same sentence makes it sound like it's some kind of universal advice worth gold or something.

I know 2 of the books mentioned and they are great books, but the poster should mention that the Design of Everyday Things is starting to be seriously dated. At least for the examples exposed - the principles do not age.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#17

Post by tricolon »

discovr wrote: post #11
shmerl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, gray font on the white background is not pleasant. For a page which talks about books like "The Design of Everyday Things" it's kind of a fail ;)

try it now. how is that on your screen./

Your base font size is at 12px. I think that's really, really small. I find it much easier to read when it's at 18px instead. Here's a comparison: http://imgur.com/O7F5N,zCyyz#0

Now, anyone can zoom in with their browser... but your entire layout changes width when I do that: http://i.imgur.com/U96Py.png

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#18

Post by djt »

brendoncrawford wrote: post #6

Great books, but why is it necessary that every hacker should read them? How are these relevant to the hacker who writes his own Linux device drivers? Or the hacker building an open source voice recognition library? There are plenty of hackers who do amazing work that has nothing to do with visual design.

Have you read them?

I've read 2 of them and they have may be relevant. The ideas in them go past visual design and through to communication of ideas etc.

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