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How the Web Became Unreadable

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Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#191

Post by the_duke »

mhurron wrote: post #141
swiley wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But the link does not always go the the same place. I personally am always clicking on external links when I meant to go to the discussion page. I would have the main link always go to the discussion page, if there is an associated external link, have it listed under the main link. Lets see if I can get this to show what I mean (grabbed from the front page) What is the most 2000s thing you can think of? submitted 5 h…

I agree.

The same thing annoys me here on HN.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#192

Post by rspeer »

emodendroket wrote: post #109
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…

Hacker News is guilty of exactly this on downvoted posts.

And on text posts. Whenever I see top-level text it looks like it's been downvoted to hell.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#193

Post by edejong »

kps wrote: post #179
combatentropy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted posts are meant to be harder and harder to read.

They are. This merges “I disagree with this” and “No one should read this”, yielding “No one should read things I disagree with”.

At least this makes the decision explicit, as opposed to the editing bubbles created by popular social networks.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#194

Post by Deimorz »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #184
Deimorz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I think of it is that clicking on the title is taking you to the content. For a self-post, the content is posted on reddit itself, so the content location is the same as the comments page. That being said, they've made a few steps toward something closer to your suggestion in some places. For example, if you do a search, the search results behave this way, where clicking the title always takes you to the comm…

What do you mean 'they'? Commenting from the wrong account? ;)

Last Friday was my last day at reddit, so "they" is appropriate now.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#195

Post by state »

knieveltech wrote: post #177
state wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a designer, I agree completely. The problem is: interaction design really is a discipline in its absolute infancy. It's not graphic design. It's not engineering. It's not architecture. Pretty much anyone can just pick it up and start doing it. And the people who decide to ship shitty designs you're complaining about are more concerned with 'pageviews' or 'installs' (and in turn, their bonus) than actual usability.…

I would agree that interaction design for the web is in it's infancy inasmuch as it still displays a tendency to stick it's fork in the power outlet when left unsupervised. Otherwise I disagree strongly. All of the design lessons learned leading up to the .com implosion have had to be collectively re-learned at least twice (remember jello mold layouts? eyeroll ) in the last 15 years. The root problem: designers eithe…

I'm not saying progress isn't happening — I'm saying that there's a big difference between a discipline and what interaction design is in 2016.

I think these incremental steps are good, but it's going to take the equivalent of the Bauhaus to solve this problem. You need a strong foundational movement to anchor people's work. You're right that the problems have been solved, but they aren't being upheld very well.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#196

Post by braveo »

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…

I haven't updated my iphone because I read the notes and one of the things it does is give me a "new and improved" maps application.

The last time apple did that to me I stopped being able to turn randomize on and off in the music app (they did eventually bring it back, but I was floored that it was ever removed in the first place).

The thing is, I have exactly 0 complaints about the map app. They can only make it worse.

So I'm avoiding the entire update because I'm afraid they're going to do to the map app what they did to the music app.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#197

Post by douche »

acveilleux wrote: post #139
treehau5 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 enterpri…

Yup. I don't know how many times we've shoe-horned in a feature because it is a "must-have" for some prospective customer, and they either don't end up purchasing, or they purchase, but the must-have feature never gets used. It lingers on, forever, in ratty old functions and crufted-up database tables, and cognitive load.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#198

Post by flukus »

knieveltech wrote: post #177
state wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a designer, I agree completely. The problem is: interaction design really is a discipline in its absolute infancy. It's not graphic design. It's not engineering. It's not architecture. Pretty much anyone can just pick it up and start doing it. And the people who decide to ship shitty designs you're complaining about are more concerned with 'pageviews' or 'installs' (and in turn, their bonus) than actual usability.…

I would agree that interaction design for the web is in it's infancy inasmuch as it still displays a tendency to stick it's fork in the power outlet when left unsupervised. Otherwise I disagree strongly. All of the design lessons learned leading up to the .com implosion have had to be collectively re-learned at least twice (remember jello mold layouts? eyeroll ) in the last 15 years. The root problem: designers eithe…

A third problem, they have to accept that they don't have complete control, only suggestions.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#199

Post by braveo »

digi_owl wrote: post #154
Declanomous wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So gnome devs treat their users like morons. Their users leave to use KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, etc, and find the desktop environment satisfactory. I think this says more about the devs than it does the desktop environment, unless the fact that GNOME used to ship with Ubuntu skewed things.

Dunno about KDE, they seem to be following in Gnome's footsteps these days. As for XFCE and Cinnamon, they have limited options as more and more Gnome assumptions gets baked into GTK (vanishing scrollbars anyone?). Our best bet may be XLQT, but they were lacking in manpower.

I've been a happy user of i3 for years now. I preferred KDE until 4 came out. From my perspective it was horrible and I went looking for an alternative.

I found a home in i3 and would never go back, even if KDE went back to the old desktop. When in Windows land I use virtuawin, but it doesn't touch i3.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#200

Post by flukus »

douche wrote: post #197
acveilleux wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 enterpri…

Yup. I don't know how many times we've shoe-horned in a feature because it is a "must-have" for some prospective customer, and they either don't end up purchasing, or they purchase, but the must-have feature never gets used. It lingers on, forever, in ratty old functions and crufted-up database tables, and cognitive load.

I've been at a few companies that have failed because they were letting customers design their product. As in sales reps would meet with customers who would buy the product if we added x, y and z which they found absolutely critical.

Customers don't have to consider things like applicability to other customers, stability, performance or maintenance.

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