4 ms·

without CSS we'll end up with Beige boxed web, all looking the same, behaving the same Designers generally vastly overestimate how much users actually want "de

by gaius 9y ago

without CSS we'll end up with Beige boxed web, all looking the same, behaving the same Designers generally vastly overestimate how much users actually want "design".

barsonme 9y ago
And developers vastly overestimate how much users really want bland websites like we had 10+ years ago. Sure, _we_ like it because it can be great for "power users" like _us_, but 99% of the population aren't power users. It reminds me of devs wondering why many people prefer bloated, slow GUIs to CLIs.
- jodrellblank 9y ago
  What are you saying? That non-power-users like and are good at deciphering different designs and interaction models and layouts for every site, but they can't deal with regular, plain, bland sites because those are scary and confusing? If anything, shouldn't that be the other way around? Power users wanting javascript experiments, and non-power-users wanting "if it ain't broke, stop messing around with it"?
  - barsonme 9y ago
    No, not scary and confusing. Users (meaning non-power-users, generally) aren't always stupid. (In fact, given how well they can break our stuff, I'd say they're often smarter. But I digress...) What I'm saying is while we might be comfortable looking at plain HTML with #000 text on a #FFF background, a user isn't going to enjoy it very much. While we might use ctrl+f to hop around a page, a user will probably prefer a search bar with instant results that doesn't cause them to lose their place on the page. Consider: my mother (not picking on her!) definitely notices when websites run slowly. She hates it. (I got my lack of patience from her :-) However, I'm confident she would trade "slightly slow" Facebook for "have to refresh the page after each action" Facebook.
mastax 9y ago
Engineers generally vastly underestimate how much "design" affects purchasing decisions.
- brokenmachine 9y ago
  You can still have design, custom design even. But it would be so nice to retain the ability to just see the content without all that (IMO) unnecessary "design" rubbish. Reader View in Firefox is somewhat a step in this direction, but I find it removes images and some other important content.

by gaius 9y ago

without CSS we'll end up with Beige boxed web, all looking the same, behaving the same Designers generally vastly overestimate how much users actually want "design".

barsonme 9y ago

And developers vastly overestimate how much users really want bland websites like we had 10+ years ago. Sure, _we_ like it because it can be great for "power users" like _us_, but 99% of the population aren't power users. It reminds me of devs wondering why many people prefer bloated, slow GUIs to CLIs.

jodrellblank 9y ago
What are you saying? That non-power-users like and are good at deciphering different designs and interaction models and layouts for every site, but they can't deal with regular, plain, bland sites because those are scary and confusing? If anything, shouldn't that be the other way around? Power users wanting javascript experiments, and non-power-users wanting "if it ain't broke, stop messing around with it"?
- barsonme 9y ago
  No, not scary and confusing. Users (meaning non-power-users, generally) aren't always stupid. (In fact, given how well they can break our stuff, I'd say they're often smarter. But I digress...) What I'm saying is while we might be comfortable looking at plain HTML with #000 text on a #FFF background, a user isn't going to enjoy it very much. While we might use ctrl+f to hop around a page, a user will probably prefer a search bar with instant results that doesn't cause them to lose their place on the page. Consider: my mother (not picking on her!) definitely notices when websites run slowly. She hates it. (I got my lack of patience from her :-) However, I'm confident she would trade "slightly slow" Facebook for "have to refresh the page after each action" Facebook.

mastax 9y ago

Engineers generally vastly underestimate how much "design" affects purchasing decisions.

brokenmachine 9y ago
You can still have design, custom design even. But it would be so nice to retain the ability to just see the content without all that (IMO) unnecessary "design" rubbish. Reader View in Firefox is somewhat a step in this direction, but I find it removes images and some other important content.