Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, scrolling on your website is unusually slow and with unusably high latency. Not sure why.
What browser and device are you using?
Firefox ESR on Linux PC.
Design of This Website (2021)
241–250 of 261 posts
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a completely valid issue and difficult to address. I've been testing on my phone, and my phone admittedly may have a screen larger than average. Some devices just aren't suitable for some types of content.
> Some devices just aren't suitable for some types of content I think that’s rather dismissive when said content is simple text in the browser. Easy solution: don’t use fixed navigation - it is a very bad UX pattern for content/informational websites. That’s why scrolling exists. I assure you that users don’t require access to your menu 24/7 when reading through your website.
Replying to my own comment for additional content:
I wrote about this "sticky" header problem back in 2019. Seems very relevant to this current discussion.
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#243For a site that lists its #1 principle as minimalism, it sure has a lot going on at all times. Multiple menus all over the screen, many different kinds of links with distinct underline and icon suffix, popups within popups that reinvent OS window functionality, historiated initials, graphical horizontal divider with hidden links, a recommended articles carousel, and a very (visually) busy comments section. Minimal it…
Seriously, GitHub is the personal site for me
https://github.com/karthikeshwar1
It's minimal, easy to manage and update.
I did try making my own site though: https://karthikeshwar1.github.io https://karthikeshwar1.github.io/lite
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#244Gwern’s site always reminds me of the Talmud (Jewish religious text), which also has a highly distinctive design with multiple “panels” and heavy emphasis of commentary and references. It’s also somewhat confusing and intimidating the the “uninitiated” reader! It is certainly memorable though.
Speaking of the Talmud... https://www.gwern.net/Red#peterson-et-al-2019
Cool article!
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think notafraudster might be suggesting that you're lacking self-awareness because you seem very defensive when it comes to your design decisions instead of really listening to people's complaints. Just as an example, I find right aligned text hard to read, no matter your rational behind it. Might be because I'm not used to it, but who is?
> Might be because I'm not used to it, but who is? Exactly. Only one way to find out: Somebody try something different!
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your site is more "minimal" in that it has fewer text elements on the screen. But your site is much harder for me to read than gwern's. First, I hate dark background, white text; white background, dark text is much easier for me to read. (Note that gwern's site gives both options.) Second, your background image is a huge distraction for me, as is the weirdness of the non-image background at the top and on the right.…
> The upshot of all that is that I read the entire content of gwern's page. I didn't read more than a few headings of yours. Unintuitively, this is a success for me! The headings clearly stuck out, you were able to quickly scan them and determine you didn't care to read the details. That's how I'd expect a minimal design page to work.
> The headings clearly stuck out, you were able to quickly scan them and determine you didn't care to read the details.
That's not what happened. What happened was that after trying to scan a few headings of your page, I was so put off by the site design that I didn't even bother trying to figure out from the content of the headings whether I wanted to read the details. So your site design prevented me from doing what you describe.
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use Firefox on X11 with an ordinary non-HiDPI Dell monitor, and Said doesn't use a HiDPI monitor. (As far as being designers, I am not but Said is.)
So what we're basically saying, and seeing is that Chrome on Windows, is the real culprit here? Edit: Just checked Firefox on Windows, same result... So it's Windows, yay.
Sorry. Not sure what I can reasonably do to help there if Windows font rendering is just bad. Is it even something that Frank upstream could do anything about? (He's been responsive to our past bugs.) FWIW, I've heard that Windows font rendering can be good, so there may be settings you aren't using or something.
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Irrational because of such things as the fixed elements for site settings that only appear on the first page and fade out as you scroll down. If they're only intended to appear at the top, why give them fixed positioning? They have fixed positioning because they are not only intended to appear at the top. They can be invoked at any time by hovering over the faded-out sticky.
Ah, I see. Thanks for pointing that out. But one needs to know that there is an invisible widget (at least I see nothing at all there, after it has faded out) to hover over. I certainly had no idea.
The idea there is that 'something which has faded out but can be recalled easily' is a fairly common UX/UI design pattern, and so a user will unconsciously know it's there and can easily rediscover it by accident. Plus, everything else on gwern.net makes some sort of use of hover, so it's not like you expect hover to be useless!
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, I see. Thanks for pointing that out. But one needs to know that there is an invisible widget (at least I see nothing at all there, after it has faded out) to hover over. I certainly had no idea.
The idea there is that 'something which has faded out but can be recalled easily' is a fairly common UX/UI design pattern, and so a user will unconsciously know it's there and can easily rediscover it by accident. Plus, everything else on gwern.net makes some sort of use of hover, so it's not like you expect hover to be useless!
Well, OK. Personally, I moved away from using hover for anything important on my sites, because it has such a restricted application. It either doesn’t work or works unpredictably on phones and other touchscreen devices, and is pretty useless for people, like me, who use keyboard navigation. But now I read academic papers using the sioyek PDF reader, which makes such good use of hover that I’m regaining some affection for it. (Hover over a reference to a figure to see the figure pop up without losing your place, for example.)
Re: Design of This Website (2021)
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Please explain which part of my site isn't just the content, presented pleasantly? I'm not the person you asked, so forgive my jumping in here, but I feel I have a helpful answer. Design serves function. The function of a website with text is to be read. Your site's design is hard and unpleasant to read. Here's what made it difficult for me to parse and read your page: 1. The title looked like a banner offering a n…
> The title looked like a banner offering a newsletter or cookie preferences That's a problem with other sites though isn't it? > My astigmatism makes dark on light a strong preference for me You can find accessibility-enhancing browser extensions. I use one for the exact opposite myself, to turn bright sites into dark ones. Can't account for every disability. > It is also reminiscent of poetry which felt out of plac…
> That's a problem with other sites though isn't it?
I think of design as being done in a context. Few websites use green to indicate a toggle has been turned off and red to indicate a toggle has been turned on because most websites use green to indicate on or go and red to indicate off or stop. Websites are designed in that cultural context where that makes sense (there are cultures in which it's not those colors). I wouldn't expect for a website to buck that context and then say it was a problem with other websites and not the one that's deviating from norms.
Toast banners being colorful on white or black backgrounds is a design language I see all over the place. It's the context of the web. So when I encountered a colorful banner on a black field, my eyes ignored it (based on their experience elsewhere before I browsed to your site) and traveled elsewhere first. It was only when I became confused by the contents elsewhere did I take a second, closer look at the top and realized what I was reading.
Not a big deal really, but I wanted to share this one reader's experience with first impressions.
> You can find accessibility-enhancing browser extensions. I use one for the exact opposite myself, to turn bright sites into dark ones. Can't account for every disability.
No, you cannot. I don't expect sites to. I have a custom CSS I use to improve readability when it's low. But, I have noticed that many sites that are white text on dark backgrounds are reasonably readable when they choose fonts that have some weight to them. Face weight is the lever there. If you wanted to, you could increase the weight of your font a smidgen and provide a good experience to both people with astigmatism and people who prefer dark color schemes. But design choices are personal and you can keep it nice and thin too. Again, I was sharing my first impression on readability.
> Great! My site has lots of poetry. Not out of place at all.
Maybe it's not out of place, but I didn't see any poetry on that page. It was a colophon. If it was meant to be poetic, it went over my head. But, I am a mere student of poetry. Not a poet myself.
As I mentioned, I like the look of your site. I find some of the design choices to hinder readability which I value over aesthetics. Design is about finding that balance between aesthetics and functionality and not everyone agrees on where that balance should fall.
I was not the only one who found that some of the design choices distracted from the content or made the content harder to read. Now you know and can do or not do what you will with that information. But saying that your readers are "wrong" is an odd way to go about it.