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How the Web Became Unreadable

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Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#291

Post by tracker1 »

freelancezombie wrote: post #268
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.…

Designer here, how can we solve this? I'd love to have my work peer reviewed because design is so subjective and I feel like I'm probably making elementary mistakes despite learning for years.

Serious suggestion... Open up a text editor, and lay out your functionality in 80 columns wide, and 25 lines high... This is how it was in the really old days with text interfaces... everything comes up fast, you can create boxes to isolate information, but literally can only fit so much text on the screen... Now, take this, and turn it into a relatively scaling gui... for mobile, go 40x50.

There is something to be said from experience as an ansi artist and a sysop in the bad old days before the web.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#292

Post by viraptor »

DocTomoe wrote: post #267
viraptor wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are practical reasons for it. My business website gets 98% mobile traffic. Pretty much anything I'll do about it, I'll do with mobile on mind. If the original design wasn't responsive by default, I don't think I'd even implement a different view for the desktop.

Maybe you get 98% mobile traffic because your site is unusable on desktops?

No, it's a landing page and virtually all visits are from mobile devices. It's the first click of unique visitors - they didn't have the choice of the platform.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#293

Post by epeus »

dingo_bat wrote: post #10

"between ambient light and backlight leakage, by the time a color makes it to a screen, not even plain black (#000) is pure; instead it has become a grayer shade." This is changing. The best phone displays display "pure" black. If you open a black image on the screen, you cannot tell if the screen is on or off, even in pitch darkness. I love pure blacks in my apps and Web pages, contrary to the author.

I'm the author, and I like pure blacks too, but it's only pure black as long there isn't any other light on it. Thats what i meant about ambient light.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#294

Post by tracker1 »

nercht12 wrote: post #277
Silhouette wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to disagree, but I think the problem is more fundamental: way, way too many people working in tech assume that because Google and Facebook and Apple and Microsoft are huge and financially successful overall, that means they know what they're doing and should be emulated. This has been true in recent years with the trendy but awful design. It's not just the typography. The obsession with flat design and givi…

Eh... I think that's true in part, but I've also met people who really love that flat Metro design. It's hideous in my book, but it's trendy, yes, but that's because some people like it. More so than that, looking at website design from a monetary perspective: It's fast, cheap, and easy. It takes alot less time to put together a sleek modern website that utilizes the flat but nifty new CSS3 features than sitting down…

I actually really appreciate Google's Material Design... That said, many of the implementations skip or gloss over some of the nuances in web interfaces, and/or overdo aspects in practice. I also like a little more flat over the bubbly/hasbro toy look that was common in the late 90's.

That said, it's about nuances... In the end, I find that starting text only, and laying things out in a text editor (like an ansi menu screen) is a pretty good place to start... If you can't fit it on an ansi screen 80x25 for desktop and 40x50 for mobile, then you need to adjust your workflow to be simpler.

You don't need everything on one screen with magic scrolling effects... by the same note, if it's a simple form, you don't need to make it a wizard across six screens either.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#295

Post by flukus »

tluyben2 wrote: post #284
flukus wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that once you're trying to hide info or functionality it's because you don't know the users workflow. Understanding workflow is the key to usability, at least with LOB apps, trying to cram everyone's needs into a single table or building UI's that are essentially skins over database tables make for some awful UI's.

> cram everyone's needs into a single table or building UI's that are essentially skins over database tables make for some awful UI's ... which, after you learn how to use them, often work much faster than the alternatives. There are anecdotes a-plenty here like our local (tiny) bank who held out replacing their terminal based with their Windows version because in tests the keyboard based, archaic, every-on-one-scree…

The expert modes of seen (no many) have kind of been examples of what I'm talking about. User is adding a widget and it needs a category but category is not. So user has to go to category page, or in expert mode hit a key combo to bring up that screen. The easiest way for beginners and experts is to allow the user to add a category in the same workflow as adding a widget.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#296

Post by epeus »

kuschku wrote: post #34

There is a reason for this. I happen to have an almost brand-new LCD screen here with LED backlight and high resolution, and a low-resultion over-a-decade-old LCD screen. And guess what? A website that looks totally fine on the old one is so blindingly bright on the new one that it hurts. It literally hurts to look at. This can be useful, as it provides a higher dynamic range, which can be used to recreate the blindi…

If it hurts to look at your monitor set to white, turn down the brightness. Get some room lighting so it's not the only light in the place. Stop doing this to yourself, but don't ruin everyone else's readability because your screen is too bright for your conditions.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#297

Post by coldtea »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #251
coldtea wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no idea where to look on that page Everywhere? It's a page full of selected news headlines. You're not supposed to look at some particular place (except the big letter, highlighted few headlines that are presented as the most important), just to check which ones you want to open. So, not totally unlike the first page of HN. > For example the main headline right now is "TONIGHT: HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP!" Wha…

> So not totally unlike the first page of HN In fact I find the HN front page more than a little overwhelming too. Over time, I have learned the content is worth the parsing effort. BTW: I assumed "heavyweight championship" referred to boxing, not to politics. See the problem?

>In fact I find the HN front page more than a little overwhelming too. Over time, I have learned the content is worth the parsing effort.

I'll bite: what kind of news website you don't fine overwhelming?

>BTW: I assumed "heavyweight championship" referred to boxing, not to politics. See the problem?

That's not about the site's design though, just the phrasing of some particular headline.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#298

Post by coldtea »

lostsock wrote: post #239
coldtea wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no idea where to look on that page Everywhere? It's a page full of selected news headlines. You're not supposed to look at some particular place (except the big letter, highlighted few headlines that are presented as the most important), just to check which ones you want to open. So, not totally unlike the first page of HN. > For example the main headline right now is "TONIGHT: HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP!" Wha…

> So, not totally unlike the first page of HN. The front page of HN is a single list with headers at the top of the page and a footer at the bottom. It is a numbered list which shows me the title of the article, #votes, #comments, the domain name, who submitted it and the time since posted. At the bottom of the page there is an FAQ to explain to me what the page is if I've never been there before. Even if I've never…

>The drudge report has none of that

Because it doesn't need most of them. It doesn't have comments or voting -- just suggests stories the Drudge guy likes.

>What are the three columns?

Just 3 columns.

>Why is there a single column of content above that?

Because those are the "headline" stories -- as evident by the larger font too.

>How fresh is the content?

Quite fresh/breaking.

>Where do the links lead?

To news stories. Just clicking one or two makes that evident.

>Are the links user submitted or is it run by someone?*

It's the Drudge Report -- so, we can assume it's Drudge's report.

These questions are basically just questions someone just landing there might have. Not issues that hurt the actual readers of the site -- like the one's the original post complaints about.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#299

Post by kaolti »

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…

Let me defend designers here!

While I agree we're overdoing design nowadays, I don't think it's just for the sake of it. I think the problem is there are too many goals a site has to achieve and being readable is just one of them.

I would prefer to focus on specific group of people and cater to them, but very few businesses do this. Instead they want email subscribers, social engagement, comments, ads, CTA clicks, Sign ups, everything. So you end up with a mess, BUT the site satisfies measurable goals. Newsletter modals sure piss of a lot of people, but they work if your goal is getting subscriptions.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#300

Post by adrianratnapala »

coldtea wrote: post #297
adrianratnapala wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So not totally unlike the first page of HN In fact I find the HN front page more than a little overwhelming too. Over time, I have learned the content is worth the parsing effort. BTW: I assumed "heavyweight championship" referred to boxing, not to politics. See the problem?

> In fact I find the HN front page more than a little overwhelming too. Over time, I have learned the content is worth the parsing effort. I'll bite: what kind of news website you don't fine overwhelming? > BTW: I assumed "heavyweight championship" referred to boxing, not to politics. See the problem? That's not about the site's design though, just the phrasing of some particular headline.

> I'll bite: what kind of news website you don't fine overwhelming?

Traditional blog-like fromats, e.g. Slashdot, where each headline comes with the top para, which you can skim. If you don't skim it, then it's welcome filler spacing out the headlines.

Of course, content matters more than presentation. HN is better than Slashdot, and probably needs to keep its denser format.

>>BTW: I assumed "heavyweight championship" referred to boxing, not to politics. See the problem?

> That's not about the site's design though, just the phrasing of some particular headline.

The problem is inadquate info on the front page. I.e. only getting a headline.

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