3 ms·

What's with this "it has to look identical everywhere" mentality? Do your margins really need to be precisely 10px on every single display? I've always thought

by tomc1985 11y ago

What's with this "it has to look identical everywhere" mentality? Do your margins really need to be precisely 10px on every single display? I've always thought one of those most beautiful things about a well-designed layout was how adapts to a variety of viewing scenarios, yet it seems the majority of conversation on the matter is about making sure things are absolutely identical. Your fonts and even colors could change. Webfonts are great and all til the idiot designer picks some "nice" ultra-thin that, while probably looked real sweet on his/her fancy Retina Cinema Display, looks like ass on mine.

RandomBK 11y ago
I agree with your dislike for thin fonts, as they're unreadable on my screens. However, the web is more than just text articles, and the precise positioning and display of text is quite important for web applications. It's important for me to know if the text on a button is wrapping or being cut off, and even more important for me know that my application will look the same on every screen.
- bzbarsky 11y ago
  You mean except for the screen of the user who has weak eyesight (e.g. due to being over the age of 40) and has set a 16px minimal font size in their browser? I set a 13px minimum font size in my browser (the smallest size I can read comfortably on my screen) and I constantly run into web applications that try to go for the level of control you describe and totally fail because they think 10ps fonts are a good idea. Of course my usual response is to close that tab and never use that web application again if I can help it.
  - RandomBK 11y ago
    Then what would you suggest? Tradeoffs have to be made between font size and information density. If I was writing a web app for seniors for example, then yes, font size is a major concern. However, the vast majority of people do not set minimum font sizes. From my experience, most users tend to zoom the entire page if they need a larger font, which scales all UI elements (almost) evenly. Ultimately, web applications (particularly enterprise and other B2B services) are designed to replace a lot of functionality normally relegated to native applications. While it is important to present a nice, clean interface, material design UIs with nice, large fonts and generous margins won't let me show what I need to show without making the user search through menus or scroll across a massive page.
    - tomc1985 11y ago
      > While it is important to present a nice, clean interface, material design UIs with nice, large fonts and generous margins won't let me show what I need to show without making the user search through menus or scroll across a massive page. Why is 'material design' itself important? It's an arbitrary standard cast by Google, and in the opinion of many of us, it's ugly-as-hell. Same with large fonts and generous margins!
    - bzbarsky 11y ago
      > Tradeoffs have to be made between font size and information density Well, sure. My personal suggestion is to have lower information density if the higher one can't be achieved without going below the 16px default font size of browsers and allowing scrolling as needed. After all, that's what you end up with _anyway_ if people full-page-zoom. Except now they typically need to scroll in two directions, not one, if the page hardcoded some widths in. > However, the vast majority of people do not set minimum font sizes. This is through lack of knowledge, not lack of desire. All the people I've showed this feature too were incredibly happy to see it. All of the older relatives I've set up computers for have minimum font sizes set up. Keep in mind that as of the 2010 census there were about 309 million people in the US, of whom 74 million were under 18. Of the remaining 234 million, 40 million were over 65 years old: that's about one in 6 adults. Another 59 million were 50-64 years old. Another 22 million were 45-50. So over half the adults are over the age of 45. Oh, and another 21 million were 40-45. See http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf page 4 or so. Age-related problems with vision start in the early 40s. So unless you yourself are already experiencing them (and hence can evaluate how usable your web app is), or unless you know your web app will only be used by Silicon Valley startups all of whose employees are in their 20s or something, you should probably assume that a large fraction of your users can't read smaller fonts. I appreciate that this is a hard problem. I'm just saying that browsers allow users to override whatever styling the web page is doing, they will continue to do that, and as the population ages even further I expect it to become more and more common for users to do just that. Note that generous margins are not as important as not too small fonts (not to be confused with "large fonts"; the default 16px font of browsers is not a "large font" in any reasonable sense, and yet people keep insisting on having text that is _much_ smaller than that) for purposes of readable text.
- rimantas 11y ago
  http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com
- tomc1985 11y ago
  > even more important for me know that my application will look the same on every screen. That's my whole point. It's a superfluous concern.
endgame 11y ago
I have no idea why this has become a thing, because I completely agree with you. The result of "it has to look identical everywhere" has resulted in lowest-common-denominator design and duplo-style interfaces[1], and it makes me really sad. [1] I credit this metaphor to http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
zhte415 11y ago
To concur with your point from a somewhat different angle: > Your fonts and even colors could change. Webfonts are great and all til the idiot designer picks some "nice" ultra-thin that, while probably looked real sweet on his/her fancy Retina Cinema Display, looks like ass on mine. A colleague made a comment: she's a Chinese speaker with great English. I'm an English speaker with pretty functional Chinese. "Why are the letters so small. I don't even want to look at it." This was a default setting. So we increased it to 16px. It was good. It is a pain reading in a script you're familiar with, but not intimately so you've read 1000s-10000s of thousands of words in it per day since childhood. Everyone in the office (in China) appreciated the change. Then I got the reverse shock, of a colleague releasing an internal website in all I can describe as thin font, grey, light blue background, and around 10px. Chinese characters at 10px are a pain. A massive pain. And I felt the pain that my colleague experienced. He: "Oh, I see. But it looks cool." Me: "Look at how everyone in the office [native Chinese readers] bends their neck when they read this site." This was an extreme difference, but also should be considered. If you're creating something for an international audience, accommodate those that may have grown up with a different script, and simply read differently. Not a different language - a different script.

RandomBK 11y ago

I agree with your dislike for thin fonts, as they're unreadable on my screens. However, the web is more than just text articles, and the precise positioning and display of text is quite important for web applications. It's important for me to know if the text on a button is wrapping or being cut off, and even more important for me know that my application will look the same on every screen.

bzbarsky 11y ago
You mean except for the screen of the user who has weak eyesight (e.g. due to being over the age of 40) and has set a 16px minimal font size in their browser? I set a 13px minimum font size in my browser (the smallest size I can read comfortably on my screen) and I constantly run into web applications that try to go for the level of control you describe and totally fail because they think 10ps fonts are a good idea. Of course my usual response is to close that tab and never use that web application again if I can help it.
- RandomBK 11y ago
  Then what would you suggest? Tradeoffs have to be made between font size and information density. If I was writing a web app for seniors for example, then yes, font size is a major concern. However, the vast majority of people do not set minimum font sizes. From my experience, most users tend to zoom the entire page if they need a larger font, which scales all UI elements (almost) evenly. Ultimately, web applications (particularly enterprise and other B2B services) are designed to replace a lot of functionality normally relegated to native applications. While it is important to present a nice, clean interface, material design UIs with nice, large fonts and generous margins won't let me show what I need to show without making the user search through menus or scroll across a massive page.
  - tomc1985 11y ago
    > While it is important to present a nice, clean interface, material design UIs with nice, large fonts and generous margins won't let me show what I need to show without making the user search through menus or scroll across a massive page. Why is 'material design' itself important? It's an arbitrary standard cast by Google, and in the opinion of many of us, it's ugly-as-hell. Same with large fonts and generous margins!
  - bzbarsky 11y ago
    > Tradeoffs have to be made between font size and information density Well, sure. My personal suggestion is to have lower information density if the higher one can't be achieved without going below the 16px default font size of browsers and allowing scrolling as needed. After all, that's what you end up with _anyway_ if people full-page-zoom. Except now they typically need to scroll in two directions, not one, if the page hardcoded some widths in. > However, the vast majority of people do not set minimum font sizes. This is through lack of knowledge, not lack of desire. All the people I've showed this feature too were incredibly happy to see it. All of the older relatives I've set up computers for have minimum font sizes set up. Keep in mind that as of the 2010 census there were about 309 million people in the US, of whom 74 million were under 18. Of the remaining 234 million, 40 million were over 65 years old: that's about one in 6 adults. Another 59 million were 50-64 years old. Another 22 million were 45-50. So over half the adults are over the age of 45. Oh, and another 21 million were 40-45. See http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf page 4 or so. Age-related problems with vision start in the early 40s. So unless you yourself are already experiencing them (and hence can evaluate how usable your web app is), or unless you know your web app will only be used by Silicon Valley startups all of whose employees are in their 20s or something, you should probably assume that a large fraction of your users can't read smaller fonts. I appreciate that this is a hard problem. I'm just saying that browsers allow users to override whatever styling the web page is doing, they will continue to do that, and as the population ages even further I expect it to become more and more common for users to do just that. Note that generous margins are not as important as not too small fonts (not to be confused with "large fonts"; the default 16px font of browsers is not a "large font" in any reasonable sense, and yet people keep insisting on having text that is _much_ smaller than that) for purposes of readable text.
rimantas 11y ago
http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com
tomc1985 11y ago
> even more important for me know that my application will look the same on every screen. That's my whole point. It's a superfluous concern.

endgame 11y ago

I have no idea why this has become a thing, because I completely agree with you. The result of "it has to look identical everywhere" has resulted in lowest-common-denominator design and duplo-style interfaces[1], and it makes me really sad. [1] I credit this metaphor to http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm

zhte415 11y ago

To concur with your point from a somewhat different angle: > Your fonts and even colors could change. Webfonts are great and all til the idiot designer picks some "nice" ultra-thin that, while probably looked real sweet on his/her fancy Retina Cinema Display, looks like ass on mine. A colleague made a comment: she's a Chinese speaker with great English. I'm an English speaker with pretty functional Chinese. "Why are the letters so small. I don't even want to look at it." This was a default setting. So we increased it to 16px. It was good. It is a pain reading in a script you're familiar with, but not intimately so you've read 1000s-10000s of thousands of words in it per day since childhood. Everyone in the office (in China) appreciated the change. Then I got the reverse shock, of a colleague releasing an internal website in all I can describe as thin font, grey, light blue background, and around 10px. Chinese characters at 10px are a pain. A massive pain. And I felt the pain that my colleague experienced. He: "Oh, I see. But it looks cool." Me: "Look at how everyone in the office [native Chinese readers] bends their neck when they read this site." This was an extreme difference, but also should be considered. If you're creating something for an international audience, accommodate those that may have grown up with a different script, and simply read differently. Not a different language - a different script.