RealClearPolitics used to have a great interface. Very usable. Very distinctive.
Then they went all modern and ruined it.
How the Web Became Unreadable
101–110 of 354 posts
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#102Does anyone know what the contrast ratio for black ink on white paper roughly is? I was once a big fan of black-on-white on my computer screen, until I read that Solarized aimed for the contrast of "shaded paper" [1] and realized that the contrast ratio on a computer screen was much greater than the contrast ratio in printed material. Also, it seems to me that monitors have improved in being able to display more cont…
You'll get more out of turning down the brightness of your monitor than changing color schemes.
White paper will depend more on the room lighting than anything else.
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#103The latest web design trends feel like they are trying to make things "readable" for people who don't actually want to read. At the expense of people who want to read. I am so happy when I see a simple page with text and pictures I can scroll through without things reloading or things jumping around.
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#104There is a reason for this. I happen to have an almost brand-new LCD screen here with LED backlight and high resolution, and a low-resultion over-a-decade-old LCD screen. And guess what? A website that looks totally fine on the old one is so blindingly bright on the new one that it hurts. It literally hurts to look at. This can be useful, as it provides a higher dynamic range, which can be used to recreate the blindi…
There is a good reason why most serious monitor reviews/guides recommend adjusting the brightness waay down. I think the common standard is around 120cd/m², which should be comfortable in typical indoors ambient lightning.
This is also one of the reasons why "HDR" is sort of a thing now. It enables utilization of the high brightness that modern displays are capable of in a controlled fashion, somewhat like what you are asking. Pure sRGB white on a (properly configured) HDR display should not be eyewateringly bright, while media can still show even brighter colors/"superwhite" for effect.
Essentially the problem boils down to color management. The fundamentals for it have existed for decades, but it hasn't really broken through outside some professional contexts. I think the historical reason for this is that people were so happy to have any colors at all on their computers that very few stopped to think if the colors should be controlled in some fashion.
Same way that HiDPI displays has forced software and systems to be more resolution-independent, I think HDR displays will force some degree of color management to mainstream. I doubt we will be getting professional-grade factory calibration everywhere, but just having workable system-wide color management and any sort of display profiles, even if it is accurate only in the broad strokes.
Incidentally the poor color management support in software is the main reason not to by so called "wide-gamut" (=AdobeRGB) monitors, unless you know what you are doing. Despite typically having better factory calibration etc and overall color capability, tons of stuff will look cartoonishly garish because software (like browsers) are not properly accounting for the expanded colorspace.
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#105Designers are ruining software in general. iTunes, the iOS music app, and Google Maps are just a few pieces of software that started out relatively usable (if not exactly stable in the case of iTunes), and have been iterated and stylized to the point where I routinely get enraged by them. At least Google Maps has walked back that terrible accordion thing that literally drove me crazy. I basically think design is like…
> Reddit works
You know what I really hate about reddit? The inconsistency of the links. If the link is a self.subreddit link, it goes to the discussion thread, if it was a submitted link to a location outside of reddit, the link goes to that page and to see the discussion thread you have to click on the small 'comment' link.
I wouldn't say reddit works any more than a 'designed to death' site, just that it hasn't been 'designed to death.' It is full of it's own problems.
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#106Designers are ruining software in general. iTunes, the iOS music app, and Google Maps are just a few pieces of software that started out relatively usable (if not exactly stable in the case of iTunes), and have been iterated and stylized to the point where I routinely get enraged by them. At least Google Maps has walked back that terrible accordion thing that literally drove me crazy. I basically think design is like…
The usability issues compound when that page was created with 1.2MB of JS (and another 2MB of ads), and I have to see a loading spinning wheel when it could have been easily been static content. ...And then when the page loads, I accidentally click an ad instead of a link because the ad moved over the content that I was reading to offer me 10% of joining the exclusive mailing list.
Yeah you would have thought that constantly rearranging pages would have been something that went away alongside dialup...
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#107I'm so glad that I am not alone in this. Over the last few years I have seen people tuning down the font-weight and putting #BBB text on an #FFF background, and I felt like I was the only one who noticed or cared. It's nice to know that I'm not crazy.
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#108And I thought I was the only one it bothered to no end.
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#109Designers are ruining software in general. iTunes, the iOS music app, and Google Maps are just a few pieces of software that started out relatively usable (if not exactly stable in the case of iTunes), and have been iterated and stylized to the point where I routinely get enraged by them. At least Google Maps has walked back that terrible accordion thing that literally drove me crazy. I basically think design is like…
Hacker News is guilty of exactly this on downvoted posts.
Re: How the Web Became Unreadable
#110Designers are ruining software in general. iTunes, the iOS music app, and Google Maps are just a few pieces of software that started out relatively usable (if not exactly stable in the case of iTunes), and have been iterated and stylized to the point where I routinely get enraged by them. At least Google Maps has walked back that terrible accordion thing that literally drove me crazy. I basically think design is like…
> I seriously want to punch a hipster every time I have to use an app that used to work and has now been designed to death.
Me too. In fact, it concerns me how angry stupid decisions make me these days. I just want to sit folks down in a chair and ask them why they hell they broke something that needed no fixing. It wasn't a problem, and now it is. I want to quote the 90s classic Billy Madison at them:
> Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
I read websites on a daily basis where image loading is broken without JavaScript, and where focusing the page takes over a second while it loads images — when HTML has supported images for over two decades. I read websites where even with every blocker I know of used at once can't keep them readable. I use software clearly designed to only be usable by a teenager with perfect vision and thirteen thumbs. Why do people do this?