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Having line-height: 1.6 on HN would go a long way in terms of readability.

by dmitriz 10y ago

unsignedqword 10y ago
Perhaps one or two small changes like changing the line height and a comment de-scope button would be nice for usability. It's important not to go down the slippery slope of adding too much functionality, in my opinion - look at Reddit, for instance. Structurally, very similar to HN, but I'd say it adds a little too much control and detail to the end user. Do I need to know a comment's exact karma rating, the ammount of users online in a subreddit? Does there need to be two different submit buttons? It goes on and on...
oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
Apparently (I can't check right now), HN uses 'line-height: normal'. If that's not readable for you, complain to your browser vendor; they can interpret that value however they want. And, in some ways, it's preferable to specifying a fixed value; it can - and should - be optimised for the specific font. I'm not sure whether the spec allows it, but - in theory - your browser could also optimise 'normal' for line-length.
- dmitriz 10y ago
  Yes, it is set to `normal`. It is reasonably readable but not excessively reasonably ;) I don't think browser vendors are the right people to blame though. Their job is to give the designer enough control and they mostly succeed or sometimes don't (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/12/css-baseline-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/12/css-baseline-the-go...) But you certainly cannot expect them to come up with optimal default working for every single site out there. So setting proper line-height has to remain the site's responsibility. And something as simple as unitless 1.4-1.6 would improve readability with any "regular" font. Given that HN isn't exactly famous for using fancy fonts, which isn't a bad thing at all. ;)
  - oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
    I agree, but if "line-height: 1.25" (my browser's interpretation of 'normal') is 'wrong' more often than not, browser vendors should fix that.
    - dmitriz 10y ago
      In my browser it looks more like '1.25'. And the worst part -- I can't see it in the dev tools! It shows me 'normal' as computed value and I still don't know what it is! Apparently HN is using table layout and `line-height: normal` is set by UA on any table. This is the first time I can't overwrite it by setting it on `body`. This just breaks anything I know and only leads to frustration.

Having line-height: 1.6 on HN would go a long way in terms of readability.

by dmitriz 10y ago

Having line-height: 1.6 on HN would go a long way in terms of readability.

Perhaps one or two small changes like changing the line height and a comment de-scope button would be nice for usability. It's important not to go down the slippery slope of adding too much functionality, in my opinion - look at Reddit, for instance. Structurally, very similar to HN, but I'd say it adds a little too much control and detail to the end user. Do I need to know a comment's exact karma rating, the ammount of users online in a subreddit? Does there need to be two different submit buttons? It goes on and on...

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago

Apparently (I can't check right now), HN uses 'line-height: normal'. If that's not readable for you, complain to your browser vendor; they can interpret that value however they want. And, in some ways, it's preferable to specifying a fixed value; it can - and should - be optimised for the specific font. I'm not sure whether the spec allows it, but - in theory - your browser could also optimise 'normal' for line-length.

dmitriz 10y ago
Yes, it is set to `normal`. It is reasonably readable but not excessively reasonably ;) I don't think browser vendors are the right people to blame though. Their job is to give the designer enough control and they mostly succeed or sometimes don't (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/12/css-baseline-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/12/css-baseline-the-go...) But you certainly cannot expect them to come up with optimal default working for every single site out there. So setting proper line-height has to remain the site's responsibility. And something as simple as unitless 1.4-1.6 would improve readability with any "regular" font. Given that HN isn't exactly famous for using fancy fonts, which isn't a bad thing at all. ;)
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  I agree, but if "line-height: 1.25" (my browser's interpretation of 'normal') is 'wrong' more often than not, browser vendors should fix that.
  - dmitriz 10y ago
    In my browser it looks more like '1.25'. And the worst part -- I can't see it in the dev tools! It shows me 'normal' as computed value and I still don't know what it is! Apparently HN is using table layout and `line-height: normal` is set by UA on any table. This is the first time I can't overwrite it by setting it on `body`. This just breaks anything I know and only leads to frustration.