11 ms·

Yes. Somehow having a consistent look and feel is considered to be good for native apps but bad for websites. On Windows you have to make sure your controls loo

Yes. Somehow having a consistent look and feel is considered to be good for native apps but bad for websites. On Windows you have to make sure your controls look and behave the same as every other app or people will get lost and think it's some clunky port of an open source Linux app. On the web, somehow every designer wants to reinvent the wheel.

pmontra 11y ago
Apple and to some extent Microsoft impose the look and feel of the apps on their platforms (desktop and mobile) but nobody has control of the web. It's just too large and decentralized. Best practices are all we have but not everybody knows them. Just check the number of pages with a light background and text of a color too light to be read comfortably, or that you can't pinch to zoom on a tablet and you need a lens to read. Edit: check this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3129953/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3129953/ about reiventing the wheel, a horizontal scrollbar to flip pages instead of the plain vertical scrollbar of the browser.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  Google and other search providers are probably best positioned to encourage improvements in design and presentation. They've already done quite a bit of this in regards to accessibility generally and mobile and HTTPS useage. I'm hoping that they'll tackle usability and design simplicity in future.
  - pmontra 11y ago
    I worked in a project that had to implement an ebook like ui like that. Not trivial. Why did that have to it in that site is a mystery.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  That horizontal scrollbar is similar to the one on the Internet Archive's BookReader Web app. I find it appropriate there. The NIH page suffers in that it doesn't scroll down, allowing for full-screen viewing on tablets such as the one I'm using. There's a permanently visible browser nav and tab bar on it, which I'd prefer to have go away. Many sites with persistent headers suffer similarly (e.g., G+).

pmontra 11y ago

Apple and to some extent Microsoft impose the look and feel of the apps on their platforms (desktop and mobile) but nobody has control of the web. It's just too large and decentralized. Best practices are all we have but not everybody knows them. Just check the number of pages with a light background and text of a color too light to be read comfortably, or that you can't pinch to zoom on a tablet and you need a lens to read. Edit: check this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3129953/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3129953/ about reiventing the wheel, a horizontal scrollbar to flip pages instead of the plain vertical scrollbar of the browser.

dredmorbius 11y ago
Google and other search providers are probably best positioned to encourage improvements in design and presentation. They've already done quite a bit of this in regards to accessibility generally and mobile and HTTPS useage. I'm hoping that they'll tackle usability and design simplicity in future.
- pmontra 11y ago
  I worked in a project that had to implement an ebook like ui like that. Not trivial. Why did that have to it in that site is a mystery.
dredmorbius 11y ago
That horizontal scrollbar is similar to the one on the Internet Archive's BookReader Web app. I find it appropriate there. The NIH page suffers in that it doesn't scroll down, allowing for full-screen viewing on tablets such as the one I'm using. There's a permanently visible browser nav and tab bar on it, which I'd prefer to have go away. Many sites with persistent headers suffer similarly (e.g., G+).