Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

cybernetic.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 267 posts

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#181

Post by rtpg »

funcDropShadow wrote: post #151
solardev wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> looking to move it all to svelte because react literally cannot handle the quantities of data I have nothing against Svelte, but how much data are you showing on screen, exactly? Here's an example table with 100,000 cells (100 rows * 1000 columns per row) that seems fine, from a common React UI kit: https://mui.com/x/react-data-grid/virtualization/#column-vir... It seems fast on my computer normally (M2 Max), slow…

> Here's an example table with 100,000 cells ... > It seems fast on my computer normally (M2 Max), slow but usable when the CPU is throttled down 4x, and too slow after that. But that's a lot of cells. No, it is not a lot of cells in a table. It is something a Windows95 era PC had no problem doing in something like Delphi Builder. And you find it acceptable that it slows down, if an M2 Max throttles down? Even a thro…

> It is something a Windows95 era PC had no problem doing in something like Delphi Builder.

I would recommend you actually try this, because it's not as true as you would like to believe.

I am very much pro-"make things fast" but let's not pretend that old machines didn't randomly hiccup on things all the time as well.

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#182

Post by SushiHippie »

ra1231963 wrote: post #167
Bluestein wrote: post #67

I'd like to think projects like these are somehow signaling a return to well designed but information dense , space saving interfaces ... The amount of bloat, whitespace, extra spacing, "air" and other such waste - starting with (now Google-dead) "Material Design" has been egregious.- (One can dream ...)

> starting with (now Google-dead) "Material Design" I thought it was still actively developed. Are you saying this has been killed by Google? https://m3.material.io/

No Material 3 (Material You) is the design that stock android uses for all its UI components, and more and more third party apps start using it.

Though I haven't seen Material Design Website in a while.

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#183

Post by Ygg2 »

panta wrote: post #168
elschneider wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a fundamental difference depending on what kinds of users you are targeting and how often they're using your app. Blender is a prime example of software for professionals, that are also willing the spend a considerable amount of time on learning the UI. A lot of software is not targeting a similar audience and should limit cognitive overload.

I'm constantly frustrated by software that tries to limit cognitive overload. Stop treating your users as if they were cognitively impaired. In other words, write a software that also an idiot can use, and only idiots will want to use it.

I'm calling bullshit on this one. In more ways than one.

1. Stuff that benefits imparied users benefits others. Subtitles help both. You'll never operate always at peak capacity either.

2. You can design UI to be layered. Easy mode for beginners and more advanced options for advanced users.

3. Software that's easy to use sees bigger audience. Period.

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#184

Post by pavlov »

In my opinion this experiment is missing a key element of designing for UI density: typography.

These screens use a fixed-width font at a single size. It’s a retro 1980 text-mode UI look, and it’s fine if that was the design constraint they wanted.

But you can squeeze a lot more information on screen if you can have a proper hierarchy of typefaces and sizes.

(As a basic example, the “About” box now consumes almost a quarter of the screen on a phone. A change to a smaller proportional font could fit this information in half the space and still remain readable on a phone.)

If you look at the works of an accomplished information designer like Edward Tufte, he often obsesses about getting the typography right. His books use many typographic elements and scales even for the body text, outside of the visualizations.

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#185

Post by dagw »

sulandor wrote: post #175
funcDropShadow wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious why you think it reduces design costs to put less information on the screen? The question is for whom it saves costs? For the developers of UI framework it certainly saves cost to treat the desktop as a second rate platform and to focus just on mobile. Developers of desktop applications have to pay the price, by working around libraries and frameworks that do not consider them as a first tier clients.

maybe oversimplified: things on screen take effort. less things, less effort

Deciding what not to put on the screen takes at least as much effort as adding things to the screen.

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#186

Post by [deleted] »

mhh__ wrote: post #98
andrewstuart wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> react literally cannot handle the quantities of data Presented at fact but I’m not sure this is universally correct. I don’t see why the application that is linked here couldn’t be done in react.

Removed the word "literally" (riffed too enthusiastically there) because my point was that's its already a bit slow, will only get slower as more things are added, and the code is already ugly despite being basically conventional/boring react. The data I'm displaying also is quite deep and results in the creation of a lot of DOM elements (i.e. its visual rather than tabular). It noticeably chugs a bit even when the a…

[deleted]

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#188

Post by jorvi »

panta wrote: post #168
elschneider wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a fundamental difference depending on what kinds of users you are targeting and how often they're using your app. Blender is a prime example of software for professionals, that are also willing the spend a considerable amount of time on learning the UI. A lot of software is not targeting a similar audience and should limit cognitive overload.

I'm constantly frustrated by software that tries to limit cognitive overload. Stop treating your users as if they were cognitively impaired. In other words, write a software that also an idiot can use, and only idiots will want to use it.

I have had the (dis)pleasure of watching my 60yr old mother having to re-learn the entire administrative part of her healthcare job three times over and deeply struggle because the insurance suits decided a new software package was needed.

Nothing humbles you more as a dev than seeing a layman struggle through an interface, getting increasingly frustrated and desperate because she can’t find the button she needs due to complexity and sensory overload due to a million tabs, buttons and text fields.

The worst of it is, you can see that she knows what she wants to do, but can’t translate that into the steps needed to get the computer to “understand” that, effectively making it feel as if it is trying to sabotage her. Something that would have taken 20 minutes with pen & paper suddenly takes 40 minutes digitally. Weren’t computers supposed to make us more efficient?

Considerately, screw your attitude. Eat some humble pie.

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#189

Post by llm_trw »

Ygg2 wrote: post #183
panta wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm constantly frustrated by software that tries to limit cognitive overload. Stop treating your users as if they were cognitively impaired. In other words, write a software that also an idiot can use, and only idiots will want to use it.

I'm calling bullshit on this one. In more ways than one. 1. Stuff that benefits imparied users benefits others. Subtitles help both. You'll never operate always at peak capacity either. 2. You can design UI to be layered. Easy mode for beginners and more advanced options for advanced users. 3. Software that's easy to use sees bigger audience. Period.

A bigger audience isn't a better audience.

A violin solo in a football stadium with the usual football audience is not an improvement over one in a recital room with the usual audience.

Re: An experiment in UI density created with Svelte

#190

Post by whilenot-dev »

ra1231963 wrote: post #167
Bluestein wrote: post #67

I'd like to think projects like these are somehow signaling a return to well designed but information dense , space saving interfaces ... The amount of bloat, whitespace, extra spacing, "air" and other such waste - starting with (now Google-dead) "Material Design" has been egregious.- (One can dream ...)

> starting with (now Google-dead) "Material Design" I thought it was still actively developed. Are you saying this has been killed by Google? https://m3.material.io/

At least the web components are in maintenance mode[0]. Google seems to focus on a new framework called Wiz now.

[0]: https://github.com/material-components/material-web/discussi...

Post reply on HN