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Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

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Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#131

Post by sn_master »

jefftk wrote: post #48

Sites are not detecting a portrait screen and deciding that they're displaying on a phone. Someone who switches their monitor to portrait, or resizes a window to be taller than it is wide, is still going to get the desktop view. In this case the author is scaling their resolution, and so their browser is presenting itself to sites as 720px wide. Sites see that and show a layout optimized for a screen of that width. T…

I can't use HackerNews on my monitor without scaling. If I press Ctrl+0 on Chrome, the site becomes unusable.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#132

Post by mrweasel »

Kuraj wrote: post #12
MivLives wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the worst when you're displaying two sites side by side on a 1080p screen.

This drives me up the wall. You would think it's such a common scenario!

We use a web-based time tracking system that appears to assume that you're either on a device with a touch screen, or have an ultra wide display. You can't easily scroll side to side without touch, so the second best option is full screen on a ultra wide screen, so you don't need to scroll.

I long advocated that website started to use the more of the width of the screen on desktops, to avoid unnecessary scrolling. However, I just a frequently have two windows next to each other.

There's no real good way of satisfying all use cases, but it generally seems like desktops are being neglected when company design websites. Previously mobile seemed to be hacked on to an existing site, now everyone seems to go the route of: If it's good enough for mobile, it's good enough for desktop users.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#133

Post by edent »

egypturnash wrote: post #99

The “solution” he gives for website devs is to “stop naively using screen resolution”. But the thing is, an iPhone 12’s resolution is 2532‑by‑1170-pixel at 460 ppi - bigger than his 1080×1920.

Sure, but the viewport resolution is only 390px wide. https://useyourloaf.com/blog/iphone-12-screen-sizes/

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#134

Post by tehbeard »

iamben wrote: post #77
asiando wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed completely. One mistake that designers/developers do though is to completely give up under 1000px so we get this swaths of whitespace and a hamburger. That’s a waste of estate and a waste of my time.

Yeah, I still very often get "here is the desktop design, here is the mobile design". Depending on who is developing the designs depends how that's going to translate. I have all the time in the world for developers that reflow the page and remove/adjust elements at different breakpoints (based on the design) between 'desktop' and 'mobile' so the experience is good for everyone. Sadly, most people don't bother.

Convincing a client to pay for time to spend checking the design and tweaking it in the space between the breakpoints can be more hassle than it's worth.

That said, sane breakpoints can usually avoid unexpected hamburgers on the desktop.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#135

Post by DangerousPie »

iamben wrote: post #77
asiando wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed completely. One mistake that designers/developers do though is to completely give up under 1000px so we get this swaths of whitespace and a hamburger. That’s a waste of estate and a waste of my time.

Yeah, I still very often get "here is the desktop design, here is the mobile design". Depending on who is developing the designs depends how that's going to translate. I have all the time in the world for developers that reflow the page and remove/adjust elements at different breakpoints (based on the design) between 'desktop' and 'mobile' so the experience is good for everyone. Sadly, most people don't bother.

If desktop + mobile make up >95% of your audience it's hard to justify the cost of creating a third set of rules for the rest.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#136

Post by DangerousPie »

dahfizz wrote: post #59
timw4mail wrote: post #15

The real problem is that designing for different screen sizes, especially with responsive design, is very difficult. For my personal projects, screen size is the factor used to determine layout. Mobile/tablet/laptop/desktop is irrelevant. My goal with smaller viewports is to make the layout as similar as possible, without the user having to scroll horizontally. Because I don't want to change the layout too much, I do…

The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.

HN is almost useless on mobile. Tiny UI elements that are hard to hit, people using code blocks for quotes that cut off after the first few characters, etc

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#138

Post by falcolas »

Robotbeat wrote: post #98
stronglikedan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that Chrome on Android lets me zoom into any content on any site, regardless of how bad the devs borked the UX. (Yes, devs, if you don't allow me to zoom using the browser's built-in capabilities, you have borked the UX, and should be ashamed of yourselves.)

I didn’t know this! And inability to do this is a huge pet peeve (as well as not being able to zoom OUT and get a desktop-like view on my phone). Does this work on any browser for iPhone?

Just confirmed it works on Firefox and Safari. Though I seem to recall seeing some sites which break that functionality with CSS.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#139

Post by falcolas »

matsemann wrote: post #117
sillysaurusx wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't address the author's central argument, which is that websites need an effortless way of letting fonts become bigger without affecting the entire layout. I've wanted it too. I don't really care if some text gets cut off on headers and looks weird, I just want to read stuff from the comfort of my bed with my laptop a few feet away.

That's how zooming (ctrl+scroll) in the browser used to work: It increased font sizes. It has been abandoned because it just wreaks havoc on the layout and is impossible to handle properly.

It's still an option in Firefox. In the general preferences, a checkbox titled "Zoom text only".

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#140

Post by falcolas »

DangerousPie wrote: post #136
dahfizz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.

HN is almost useless on mobile. Tiny UI elements that are hard to hit, people using code blocks for quotes that cut off after the first few characters, etc

At least it allows for pinch zooming, which is (IMO, of course) an acceptable compromise. Maintain readability for the text while still making it possible to hit the UI elements.
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