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How the Web Became Unreadable

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Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#71

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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'.

Usually evidence is only really needed when there is no direct empirical validation.

>Both then and now, the reason for the bad sites is that they are made by amateurs. They're the same people that make those terrible leaflets with 20 fonts and loads of clipart. Just because they exist, it doesn't mean the web is getting worse. My anecdotal experience is that it's improving.

Your complaint seem to be about amateur sites and designs. The concerns of the post and most here are about sites and apps done by handsomely paid designers and large companies. It's more about great UI paradigms being buried under designy graphics and hipster aesthetics than about tacky or 200-fonts bonanza issues.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#72

Post by jonstokes »

coldtea wrote: post #67
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…

>You know what works? Craiglist, that's what works. Reddit works. Hacker News works. Political views aside (and the post doesn't concern those either), this is quite relevant: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1407-why-the-drudge-report-is...

That's a great link. I agree with all of it.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#73

Post by usaphp »

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…

> "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"

Did it ever occurs to you that they had far less functionality when these examples were created? Backend programmers kept piling functionality into these apps and at some point no matter how good a designer is it just gets overwhelmed.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#74

Post by rabboRubble »

StreamBright wrote: post #47

I regurarly copy paste URLs into Pocket to be able to read the content, not even for storing it long term. Pocket became the ultimate readability vendor for me over the last year, for those reasons the author listed in his post and for some other reasons (like advertising for example) too.

I do sorta the same thing, but rather put things through an RSS reader. RSS reader strips out much garbage and turns grey font to black.

Edit: Oh, and the use of Ctrl + + is a more frequent command. Bad font color isn't as big of a problem when the font size is embiggened to 72p.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#75

Post by hollerith »

Front-end web experts: please describe what a user of the web can do to increase legibility. (All the comment I've seen so far are addressed to web-site owners or their agents.)

In particular, how can I configure my web browser to override low-contrast text colors? Is a userscript the best way? What is the most convenient way to override font-lightness settings under 400?

Preferably, a single change in the configuration of my browser would result in changes across many web site -- as opposed to my having to make a separate change for for every web site I care about.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#76

Post by treehau5 »

usaphp wrote: post #73
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…

> "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" Did it ever occurs to you that they had far less functionality when these examples were created? Backend programmers kept piling functionality into these apps and at some point no matter how good a designer is it just gets overwhelmed.

> 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.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#77

Post by [deleted] »

DavidWanjiru wrote: post #68
sthatipamala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually their term for high DPI displays. If you want to be pedantic, at least be correct.

Speaking of pedantic, what is the difference between "high resolution screens" and "high DPI screens"? Assuming, of course, that screen and display mean the same thing.

[deleted]

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#78

Post by mordocai »

DavidWanjiru wrote: post #68
sthatipamala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually their term for high DPI displays. If you want to be pedantic, at least be correct.

Speaking of pedantic, what is the difference between "high resolution screens" and "high DPI screens"? Assuming, of course, that screen and display mean the same thing.

Resolution is how many pixels per the entire screen. DPI is how many pixels per a inch.

For instance, a high resolution 4k TV that is 50" might not be considered high DPI compared to a 4k 15" laptop screen.

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#79

Post by [deleted] »

DavidWanjiru wrote: post #68
sthatipamala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually their term for high DPI displays. If you want to be pedantic, at least be correct.

Speaking of pedantic, what is the difference between "high resolution screens" and "high DPI screens"? Assuming, of course, that screen and display mean the same thing.

[deleted]

Re: How the Web Became Unreadable

#80

Post by andrewmu »

DavidWanjiru wrote: post #68
sthatipamala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually their term for high DPI displays. If you want to be pedantic, at least be correct.

Speaking of pedantic, what is the difference between "high resolution screens" and "high DPI screens"? Assuming, of course, that screen and display mean the same thing.

High resolution screens have lots of pixels and high DPI screens have many pixels per inch.

If you look at an Ultra HD (3840x2180) 40" TV close up versus a 5" phone screen (say 1334x750) viewed from the same distance you'll notice the phone screen is sharper despite having fewer pixels.

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