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How the Web Became Unreadable

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Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#131

Post by kuschku »

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...

Actually, the link you showed has the colors

#16110b and #e3d2ae for text and background.

I might just use that in future websites.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#134

Post by ThomPete »

digi_owl wrote: post #124
ThomPete wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We did learn from history. Go back 15 years the web look wastely different and has actually improved quite a lot.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#135

Post by mschuster91 »

I used to help myself with simply highlighting the text position with click-and-drag with my mouse.

I had to stop doing this after too many sites think it's acceptable to:

1) hijack highlighting in order to display "Tweet this excerpt" or similar stuff (some even did a "Copy this excerpt" - as if the users were too stupid to press Ctrl+C!)

2) replace the highlight color without taking care that it works on all site parts, it's not really nice if text and highlight colors are the same

3) append their own custom text when pressing Ctrl+C (e.g. appending [source: newspaper.com].

Dear (web) devs: don't f...ing mess with behaviour provided by the system. Just don't.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#136

Post by pmontra »

It's easy: put a magazine close to your screen (monitor, tablet, phone, whatever) and check what's easier to read. Do that in good light conditions to be fair to paper which can't backlit :-) Almost everytime the magazine wins even with smaller text. Play with the brightness control of the display. Sometimes it gets OK but only if the white background is to bright to watch.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#137

Post by kps »

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...

It's not aged paper, necessarily; look at any well-made book (excluding glossy picture books) and the paper will be stable and opaque but not bright.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#138

Post by ThomPete »

treehau5 wrote: post #76
usaphp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

> Backend programmers kept piling functionality into these apps and at some point no matter how good a designer is it just gets overwhelmed. Wow that's the first time I have heard the problem phrased this way. Usually it's the other way around -- the designers and product leads want to pile on so many features and the backend devs can't keep up, so the codebase turns into a rotten pile of shit.

I don't think thats actually true. Designers are mostly very good at not adding too much because it goes against their aesthetic mission.

What you are talking about is product people or product owners not designers.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#139

Post by acveilleux »

treehau5 wrote: post #76
usaphp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

> Backend programmers kept piling functionality into these apps and at some point no matter how good a designer is it just gets overwhelmed. Wow that's the first time I have heard the problem phrased this way. Usually it's the other way around -- the designers and product leads want to pile on so many features and the backend devs can't keep up, so the codebase turns into a rotten pile of shit.

How that story goes seem to be a cultural thing depending on the org culture. I've seen places where the loop goes:

1. BizDev and/or Sales identify a feature set that would enable a deal or broaden the market suitability.

2. Dev team tasked with adding feature XYZ.

3. Designer brought in to figure out how to add the feature to the UI with minimal effort.

4. Repeat.

I think this version is much more common in enterprise software and less so in mass consumer stuff. As we all know, enterprise software is unsexy and not worthy of YC/Startup culture. High touch sales also favors fewer deals with more customer leverage and really fat commissions for sales people.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#140

Post by duckmysick »

js8 wrote: post #97
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. 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…

> Do usability studies and follow their results, like Microsoft used to do in 90s.

Isn't Ribbon UI based on such usability studies? Yet it's something that's constantly being criticized.

There must be more to it than just following the studies.

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