3 ms·

This kind of thing makes me wonder just how small (in terms of pixel count) a UI could be, while still being as intuitive as necessary and as complete as necess

This kind of thing makes me wonder just how small (in terms of pixel count) a UI could be, while still being as intuitive as necessary and as complete as necessary to accomplish its goals. I bet we're being super wasteful currently. Like REALLY super wasteful of screen space.

jarcane 8y ago
The designs for a company web site I'm working on now are targeting a 2K screen as the default viewport. So yes, we are.
boyter 8y ago
I’d quite like a guide for that. I imagine making something in as small a space as possible is even harder then most common design trends to pull off.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  One of my early cell phones (AMPS days) had a solitaire game, and it fascinated me that solitaire could be played in such a small screen. I spent a while figuring out the minimum number of pixels needed to play a game of solitaire. Unfortunately, this was years ago so I don't remember the number. But it seems like as good a benchmark as anything else.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  I once modified a traybar icon thingy to display download rates in a 16x16 pixel area, and I'm quite proud of what I came up with, though I'm sure this is a "thing", it just has to be -- if anyone knows "the official name" for this concept I would be very grateful: Let's say you have 16 arrays with N values each, each having their own pointer to the current element. It starts out with everything zero. On each tick, you take the current value and put it in the current element of the first array, and increase the current element pointer. When you reach N, you reset the pointer to zero, take the average of all values in the array, and put that into the current element of the next array to the right, and so on. Then you draw the current average of all elements in each array as a 1 pixel bar, color according to preference, and the result is that you have near real-time values to the left, and a rather long, if very rough history to the right. Depending on how many elements each array has, you can basically fit the current frame, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year and more all in 16x16 pixels, especially since each array doesn't have to have the same number of elements.
toast0 8y ago
In the realm of video games, the Sega VMU screen was 48x32, and it was fairly usable, although limited. A ti-85 graphic calculator had 128x64 and was very usable (with training/practice, given the domain of application)
reaperducer 8y ago
Even today I'm surprised that I was able to enjoy playing Sim City on an IBM PC Convertible's 640x200 monochrome non-backlit low-refresh LCD screen. A couple of years ago I loaded up GEOS on a C=64 emulator, and was surprised how usable a GUI could be in 320x200. My watch has high resolution than that.
RodgerTheGreat 8y ago
Classic PalmOS devices typically had 160x160 pixel screens, and provided a clear, consistent, and highly usable UI.

jarcane 8y ago

The designs for a company web site I'm working on now are targeting a 2K screen as the default viewport. So yes, we are.

boyter 8y ago

I’d quite like a guide for that. I imagine making something in as small a space as possible is even harder then most common design trends to pull off.

reaperducer 8y ago
One of my early cell phones (AMPS days) had a solitaire game, and it fascinated me that solitaire could be played in such a small screen. I spent a while figuring out the minimum number of pixels needed to play a game of solitaire. Unfortunately, this was years ago so I don't remember the number. But it seems like as good a benchmark as anything else.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
I once modified a traybar icon thingy to display download rates in a 16x16 pixel area, and I'm quite proud of what I came up with, though I'm sure this is a "thing", it just has to be -- if anyone knows "the official name" for this concept I would be very grateful: Let's say you have 16 arrays with N values each, each having their own pointer to the current element. It starts out with everything zero. On each tick, you take the current value and put it in the current element of the first array, and increase the current element pointer. When you reach N, you reset the pointer to zero, take the average of all values in the array, and put that into the current element of the next array to the right, and so on. Then you draw the current average of all elements in each array as a 1 pixel bar, color according to preference, and the result is that you have near real-time values to the left, and a rather long, if very rough history to the right. Depending on how many elements each array has, you can basically fit the current frame, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year and more all in 16x16 pixels, especially since each array doesn't have to have the same number of elements.

toast0 8y ago

In the realm of video games, the Sega VMU screen was 48x32, and it was fairly usable, although limited. A ti-85 graphic calculator had 128x64 and was very usable (with training/practice, given the domain of application)

reaperducer 8y ago

Even today I'm surprised that I was able to enjoy playing Sim City on an IBM PC Convertible's 640x200 monochrome non-backlit low-refresh LCD screen. A couple of years ago I loaded up GEOS on a C=64 emulator, and was surprised how usable a GUI could be in 320x200. My watch has high resolution than that.

RodgerTheGreat 8y ago

Classic PalmOS devices typically had 160x160 pixel screens, and provided a clear, consistent, and highly usable UI.