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How the Web Became Unreadable

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Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#331

Post by intrasight »

psimyn wrote: post #281
intrasight wrote: post #213

I like to work with designers who, like me, have worked on interfaces for nuclear power plants, air traffic control systems, and stock trading systems. Others, IMHO, need not apply.

Any suggested resources for learning about these kind of interfaces?

I don't. And a quick Googling of "usability design for mission-critical systems" didn't come up with much. But here's some of the salient points I have learned:

1. Minimize different fonts and colors. Perhaps three fonts and 8 colors (and I don't mean font families)

2. Screen should be intelligible from 5 feet away

3. No "chart junk" or equivalent [1]

4. Dark grey backgrounds (very dark grey is superior to black)

You will find those characteristics to be true in the systems I mentioned.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#332

Post by Terr_ »

anotheryou wrote: post #305
tracker1 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

One big problem I see is, that power users need something quite different than first time users. You can make some compromise by tucking away advanced features without removing them, but in general it's still an issue. First time users are probably what you focus on, the rest just has to be a tad better than the competitors. First time users need to be convinced by pretty design and a super simple linear workflow tha…

IMO the key point to remember is that power-user modes aren't simply bonus pieces, but different workflows for different needs.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#334

Post by Nadya »

lucb1e wrote: post #333
robert_tweed wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even better, {max-width: 35em;}

Why is that better?

If a user sets their default font size to 26px, then a max-width of 600px may be too small... if a user sets their font size to 10px then 600px may be too wide. A value of 35em would scale the container based on the user's selected font size.

Containers should be relative to their content.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#335

Post by JoshMnem »

tracker1 wrote: post #294
nercht12 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not everything about Material Design is bad, but many of the implementations are bad, including many of Google's.

Problems with Material Design include:

    - overly bright/saturated colors
    - too much animation
    - obnoxious easings
    - an overly dry look -- kind of like formal stationary or plastic
    - centered text and content at the tops of pages (I don't know if the specification encourages this, but it's become more common)
    - bad usability with forms. A text input should be a box, not a line, and it doesn't need to distract users with animation when clicking on the input.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#337

Post by flukus »

ThomPete wrote: post #316
flukus wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~10 years ago UX was all about adding animations, glow effects and colors as hints to the user. Colors are still used (but much more sparingly) and animations and glow effect have fallen out of fashion.

Not sure what you are talking about. You sure you are not confusing campaign sites with actual digital tools and resources? It's never been a trend by designers to want to overcomplicate the design. The strive for whitespace runs so deep in most designers that you simple don't get the used car salesman mentality where every little pixel left untouched is one to much.

Not confusing it with campaign sites, I'm talking business/productivity apps.

It's entirely possible my experience was atypical, the I did a lot of reading about UX at the time and this seems to be what the "best practice" was at the time.

So if a dialog was shown the best way to do it was to have the dialog expand from the clicked element for instance. Now dialog's are frowned upon.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#338

Post by emodendroket »

paulddraper wrote: post #246
lacampbell wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find it to be a feature. I find it infantilising. "Other users didn't like this post, so we'll make it hard to read". I think it was a terrible design decision on an otherwise very clean site.

It's a very helpful hint as to which community contributed content is good quality. Like Stack Overflow making the lower rated answers less obvious (at the bottom). Oh, and SO greys out text too.

> Oh, and SO greys out text too.

If all your friends all jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#339

Post by tracker1 »

JoshMnem wrote: post #335
tracker1 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not everything about Material Design is bad, but many of the implementations are bad, including many of Google's. Problems with Material Design include: - overly bright/saturated colors - too much animation - obnoxious easings - an overly dry look -- kind of like formal stationary or plastic - centered text and content at the tops of pages (I don't know if the specification encourages this, but it's become more commo…

I agree on the colors, it doesn't need to be pastels, that's easy enough to change.

Animation, if it doesn't detract, or actually adds to the experience, sure, but agreed, some of it is superfluous.

Easings, that goes with the animations.

The dry/stationary look, I think is intentional, and I like it.

Centered text/content is arguable, I think it depends on the form and can vary.

As to the text inputs being lines, I actually prefer the material way, it's closer to what you'd see on paper forms... it's less intuitive compared to what we're used to on a computer, less so when you compare to many paper forms. The boxing that you get in say Bootstrap, by comparison I find a little more distracting than the placeholder->label animation you get, which is similar, but different to a paper form... and works exceedingly well for phones/tablets, though less impressive on a desktop, but that leaves room for additional details.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#340

Post by tracker1 »

anotheryou wrote: post #305
tracker1 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

One big problem I see is, that power users need something quite different than first time users. You can make some compromise by tucking away advanced features without removing them, but in general it's still an issue. First time users are probably what you focus on, the rest just has to be a tad better than the competitors. First time users need to be convinced by pretty design and a super simple linear workflow tha…

But it's easy enough to initiate those behind menu options, with hotkey combinations available in general... That's how advanced usability options are usually done. You don't have to show it all onscreen at once.
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