How the Web Became Unreadable • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#121

Post by Bartweiss » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #22

Bartweiss wrote: post #16

Subjective though it may be, there are a lot of people who find black-on-white unpleasant to look at. I greatly prefer sites that don't use it, regardless of what they do with font and size. This could just be a case of conflicting preferences, but I don't think it has to be. Clear contrasts are achievable without insisting on #000/#FFF web design. - The most obvious improvement is simply keeping an eye on contrast.…

Shifting the background colour, slightly , tends to be vastly more readable than screwing with the foreground colour: https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/full/KpMqqB/ It also far more closely approaches the appearance of print on somewhat aged paper: https://archive.org/stream/commercialismjou00holtuoft#page/5...

This is a great point. I realized that changing both colors, like Apple did, was awful. I underestimated the degree to which changing background feels better than changing text.

Honestly, I don't think "too much contrast" is my biggest problem with black-on-white. It's the sea of #FFF that's unpleasant (with or without text), so something like HN's ~#EEE background feels way better to look at.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#122

Post by digi_owl » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #113

digi_owl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And once more i am surprised about who comments on HN. Hi Hannibal. Edit: and yeah, i have had similar thoughts about designers ruining things. My particular hobbyhorse in that regard is _nix desktop environments.

> My particular hobbyhorse in that regard is _nix desktop environments. Oh yes, that reminds me: GNOME now pops up a message bar informing one that one has no messages every time one's mouse hits the bottom of the screen, and steals focus from the currently-running app. Why? I never used to worry about messages, I still have none, and I keep on dying while I'm playing computer games because suddenly the game no longe…

I have heard, basically from the horses mouth, that users are idiots. The Gnome devs apparently did some usability testing, and came away with that opinion...

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#123

Post by jbpetersen » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #99

jonstokes wrote: post #55

Designers 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…

Oddly enough, Reddit becomes much more usable with RES and keyboard navigation. It's primarily a consumption site, which makes the ability to expand images inline and navigate with the keyboard very valuable. The vanilla experience where you're constantly linking off to other heavy-weight sites and frequently reloading the reddit page when you come back (a trend I wish modern web browsers would burn) is rather negati…

Are you familiar with Vimium? I've been using it for keyboard navigation and RES for the rest.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#124

Post by digi_owl » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #117

zeveb wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is about self-expression and it's a small price to pay Is that a small price to pay for worsening the experience of anyone older than maybe 26? I can't even imagine trying to walk my elderly neighbour through installing her own stylesheet, nor trying to explain why none of her sites look right now, even if they are more legible.

It's not that simple. If you don't experiment, make mistakes etc. you don't grow.

At the other end, if we don't learn form history we are stuck repeating it.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#125

Post by acveilleux » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

I love Safari's reader mode exactly because it gives me a larger font black text on a white background. I'm not even that old (mid thirties) but years of monitors and glasses have taken their tolls on my vision. Low contrast, small prints strain my eyes. And when encountered and reader mode isn't an option, I usually close the site/page and go elsewhere if at all possible.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#126

Post by kuschku » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

zzzcpan wrote: post #62

kuschku wrote: post #34

There 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…

> Why can’t we specify colors independent of the monitors actual contrast ratio, too? We do that already by default. Your displays are probably not calibrated and poorly configured. Sadly, manufacturers rarely bother to provide decent ICC profiles.

Well, I have profiles for them, but with the default profiles – which I have to use, because that’s what the end user will see – the issue occurs.

For personal use, I have obviously profiled them and configured a proper LUT for accurate colors ;)

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#127

Post by js8 » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #111

js8 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Designers are ruining software in general. I agree with you. But what I find hilarious about it is that in the 90s, there was a meme that software engineers cannot do usability very well, and you need specialized designers. I think it all comes down to humility. Think about and respect the user. Do usability studies and follow their results, like Microsoft used to do in 90s. Don't let your notions of aesthetics ove…

Not saying this is always the case but I wonder if, in some of the cases, this is what makes it hard for designers to get accepted in open source: the fact that many of the developers are also users and as such are pretty opinionated while the designers that come to open source might often be very eager to "set their mark" on something?

I wouldn't judge designers this way. I think they are users too, but they have a certain aesthetics, that can be even more subjective than, say, software architecture. And in OSS you cannot really do usability studies, it's expensive (although commercial companies don't do them much today either, I think).

I think the problem really is lack of humility of some designers, which was trend-set by Steve Jobs. SJ didn't do what users wanted, he had a very strong sense of his own aesthetics (lack of buttons, for instance). This IMHO works if you can create fashion trend around it, but otherwise, it leaves a lot of people (maybe even majority) in the cold.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#128

Post by joesmo » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

usaphp wrote: post #73

jonstokes wrote: post #55

Designers 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…

> "Designers 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" Did it ever occurs to you that they had far less functionality when these examples were created? Backend programmers kept piling functionality into these apps and at some point no matter how good a designer is it just gets overwhelmed.

I haven't seen any new functionality in iTunes or Google Maps in years. I'm sure there are new features, but the basics have been the same for going on a decade now. Seems like they are just redesigning the UI to piss people off, just like every other clueless company out there. If you can't figure out how to make a clean map or music player interface, you're not a designer.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#129

Post by swiley » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #105

jonstokes wrote: post #55

Designers 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 be…

Where else would a self.reddit link go? Also, the comments link always goes to the same place.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#130

Post by zeveb » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #8

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".

Good point. In this case it shouldn't be about rebelling against an established order, but rather about establishing order (i.e., nice, clean, high-contrast standards) out of an unreadable chaos (i.e. the low-contrast free-for-all).