11–20 of 78 posts
I didn't think that was ever in doubt, was it? HN has always been difficult to use on mobile devices due to all the fixed dimensions forcing the page to render at an unsuitable size.
This is a great example of why mobile browsers suck. It is the job of the mobile browser to be able to fix these problems automatically, to resize and reflow text so that it displays properly on the device.
^this. And: It pisses me off to no end that Google is in the position to decide how a site has to look like on $device. They announce that you will get a worse SERP if your site doesn't do X and everyone scrambles to please mighty G. If they decide that every site has to have a yellow background, starting next week, what will you do? Give in?
This is a great example of why mobile browsers suck. It is the job of the mobile browser to be able to fix these problems automatically, to resize and reflow text so that it displays properly on the device.
^this. And: It pisses me off to no end that Google is in the position to decide how a site has to look like on $device. They announce that you will get a worse SERP if your site doesn't do X and everyone scrambles to please mighty G. If they decide that every site has to have a yellow background, starting next week, what will you do? Give in?
However, if they are right, and the users _do_ want to see sites optimised for mobile, it means that while you are right technically about how mobile browsers are supposed to work, and how sites are supposed to work, the real users just don't agree with you.
The address bar takes up a lot of vertical space that could be better used to show more lines of text. That big block of empty white space on the previous item next item close menu bar is also wasted.
If Google really wants to fix browsing on mobile they might want to look at their own products as well as using their seo powers.
This is a great example of why mobile browsers suck. It is the job of the mobile browser to be able to fix these problems automatically, to resize and reflow text so that it displays properly on the device.
As a developer, you should define which content should scale and/or resize according to browser viewport width and pixel density: Better known as "Responsive".
The pixel-perfect coupling that people expect between what a site should look like according to the designers and how that site is rendered by the browsers is an illusion, that's not the way the web was supposed to work at all, web sites provide information and loose markup hints and browsers then render that information in the best way suitable for the device and its user.
Don't blame the website, blame the browser instead.
Ironically, looking at ancient (pre-CSS, pre table based layouts) websites through modern browsers gives you instant adaptive design because all there was was content, no eye candy.
If we had wanted pixel based rendering we could have done a damn sight better than CSS, style sheets and markup are hints, not ultimatums to be obeyed or failure will occur.
Just think about the burden that these demands make on older websites, websites that worked perfectly well in the past suddenly need to be modified in order to be displayed properly, that's a total inversion of the way things are supposed to work. Old content and older websites should be displayed with as high fidelity as possible on newer browsers and devices. You can't fault the makers of old websites for not being 'future compatible' but you can fault the makers of new devices and browsers for not being compatible with the past.
I didn't think that was ever in doubt, was it? HN has always been difficult to use on mobile devices due to all the fixed dimensions forcing the page to render at an unsuitable size.