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How the Web Became Unreadable

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Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#51

Post by josho »

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…

On the other end of the spectrum you have people with 10 year old LCDs or crappy business displays that look similarly bad. On these displays even decent contrast is difficult to read.

> Why can’t we specify colors independent of the monitors actual contrast ratio, too?

I wonder if the CSS4 color-gamut media query work will be a good enough proxy for this? E.g.

    body { color: #fff; }

    @media (color-gamut: p3) {
      body { color: #eee; }
    }
Essentially the assumption is that a high gamut display will also be high contrast. I wonder how bad that assumption is going to be.

More details about color from webkit, https://webkit.org/blog/6682/improving-color-on-the-web/

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#52

Post by wldcordeiro »

OJFord wrote: post #46
zild3d wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, much of the web is now dominated by sites like Facebook, Google, BBC, etc - all of which are extremely readable. The author actually calls out Google and Apple specifically, for breaking their own contrast suggestions His example: https://kevinmarks.github.io/appenginebefore.png https://kevinmarks.github.io/appengineafter.png

I actually find the 'after' example an improvement for legibility - something about the spacing I think is the improvement; I don't find the colour a noticeable disadvantage at all.

In terms of layout, font choice, etc yeah I agree it's an improvement, but the shades could be given a bump in darkness without resorting to full black and have a general improvement.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#53

Post by digi_owl »

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #33

I think it's a broader problem - too much css fluff, far too much javascript; even the simplest webpages now seem to feel the need to be miniature apps in their own right, instead of just serving the damned content already. I often websurf using an old 1st gen iPad and it's a massively frustrating experience just how many sites nowadays just crash the damned browser.

I started using noscript years ago for just that reason.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#54

Post by smrtinsert »

ThomPete wrote: post #7

It’s true that many designers tend to look at text more like a texture. Instead of making it large and distinct they will make it small and light colored when it's in fact the only valuable thing on the screen. It's an unfortunate consequence of so much design today going minimal and more typographic, which makes it's hard to differentiate elements any other way than to start evening out the contrast. If everything t…

Most designers are frankly awful at typography. I would argue most design elements on a page can be simply removed if they properly used hierarchy of text to call out important areas for example.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#55

Post by jonstokes »

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 a cancer on the web anymore. You know what works? Craiglist, that's what works. Reddit works. Hacker News works. The old, pre-design-goober Google Apps interface worked.

I seriously want to punch a hipster every time I have to use an app that used to work and has now been designed to death.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#56

Post by ThatGeoGuy »

amelius wrote: post #29
throwawayReply wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. It's not perfect so people don't use it? No, people don't use it because it has poor discover-ability and it isn't in other browsers, further reducing discover-ability.

> It's not perfect so people don't use it? Unfortunately, I think this is the case. Look at DuckDuckGo. It works for 90% of searches, but for that last 10% you really need Google. As a result, people use Google for all their searches.

I think this is another case of poor discover-ability. If you "discover" and understand how the bang syntax works, you can easily use DDG for your 90% of searches and only dispatch to Google when you need to. (e.g. "!gi dogs").

DuckDuckGo is great, but unlike Google which has immense brand momentum and recognition, it lacks the marketing to drive users to the service.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#57

Post by blowski »

ThomPete wrote: post #26
blowski wrote: post #24

I'd like to see some evidence that today's sites are less readable than those that went before us. Otherwise, it just looks like nostalgia for the 'good old days'. Well I remember the 90s when we there were plenty of unreadable sites, ugly monstrosities with unreadable typography and garish colour schemes. Meanwhile, much of the web is now dominated by sites like Facebook, Google, BBC, etc - all of which are extremel…

Actually they weren't unreadable they were just ugly :)

There was an awful lot of black on dark blue, yellow on red, etc. That's just as unreadable as grey on grey.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#58

Post by digi_owl »

unicornporn wrote: post #38

I'm so surprised that all attempts at solutions for "readability" so far seems to have addressed the actual article or post content only. I don't just want to read a sane looking web, I want to browse a accessible and sane looking web. I'd like to be able to activate a browser mode that cleans up not only the content of the site, but also the structure by creating simple and accessible navigation (perhaps according t…

Reminds me that Opera's Mini browser (a proxy browser that originated on J2ME enabled featurephones) have a single column option. This will attempt to rearrange a page so that everything is a single column that fits the width of the device screen.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#59

Post by digi_owl »

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…

And once more i am surprised about who comments on HN.

Hi Hannibal.

Edit: and yeah, i have had similar thoughts about designers ruining things. My particular hobbyhorse in that regard is _nix desktop environments.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#60

Post by forgottenpass »

rafaquintanilha wrote: post #48
tragomaskhalos wrote: post #33

I think it's a broader problem - too much css fluff, far too much javascript; even the simplest webpages now seem to feel the need to be miniature apps in their own right, instead of just serving the damned content already. I often websurf using an old 1st gen iPad and it's a massively frustrating experience just how many sites nowadays just crash the damned browser.

How does that apply to typography?

The typography problem the article discusses is just a subset of a generic problem where design decisions are made without any care for people who do not share the designer's exact use case.
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