4 ms·

I feel as if many sites that used to be fine and work well have regressed in usability and features and introduced unexpected behaviors and bugs since the SPA p

by b3b0p 8y ago

I feel as if many sites that used to be fine and work well have regressed in usability and features and introduced unexpected behaviors and bugs since the SPA paradigm seems to have taken over. This seems especially true for many corporate, bank, shopping brand sites, etc. An example is the Capital One 360, Chase, and AMEX sites and even Reddit. Even JustWatch.com seems like it's fairly polished, still has it's quirks. So, I just end up using InstantWatcher.com instead. Hacker News works well as is too, except the search on the bottom can act up it seems once in a while. Edit: How could I forget, Netflix. The UI, getting to the details of a show/movie. Browsing, discovery, searching, it all feels broken and unintuitive. The DVD site last I checked was still decent. Netflix seems like the poster child for usability and regression issues moving to a SPA.

totalrobe 8y ago
TIL there is a search on HN after more than 6 years of browsing...never noticed it
endymi0n 8y ago
Fellow JustWatcher here, care to elaborate which quirks exactly you mean? Back when SPAs were still pretty new, we took the bet to make one with a pretty large surface area and despite a lot of issues (SEO especially) so far we're pretty happy with that decision.
- b3b0p 8y ago
  Infinite scroll, showing the details, clicking back sometimes doesn't bring me back to where I left off. Same when scrolling horizontally for example on the New releases I'll have to start scrolling right again after click on the details. Honestly, your website is probably the best implementation of a SPA website with multiple pages I have ever seen I can recollect. It still has quirks though. I just don't see why you would want to make a website like this a SPA. Does that help a little? I wrote this quick, off the top of my head. I can try and provide more details maybe in an email or some other communication means too.
  - endymi0n 8y ago
    Hey, that's super helpful, thanks! Why SPA? Well, a good question indeed. Actually, we're cross-compiling the same code for the webapp onto iOS and Android targets with build flags, where we're leveraging more platform features (i.e. geolocate cinemas). Also, it lets us make the experience itself much more snappy once you're on the page, as there's just content to be re-loaded. You can switch tabs, we can remember scroll positions, stuff like this. Stay tuned though for our completely rewritten release based on very recent technology, I'm hopeful this will change your perception about SPAs on large sites coming in March!
    - dagoat 8y ago
      > Stay tuned though for our completely rewritten release based on very recent technology Nothing can possibli go wrong

by b3b0p 8y ago

totalrobe 8y ago

TIL there is a search on HN after more than 6 years of browsing...never noticed it

endymi0n 8y ago

Fellow JustWatcher here, care to elaborate which quirks exactly you mean? Back when SPAs were still pretty new, we took the bet to make one with a pretty large surface area and despite a lot of issues (SEO especially) so far we're pretty happy with that decision.

b3b0p 8y ago
Infinite scroll, showing the details, clicking back sometimes doesn't bring me back to where I left off. Same when scrolling horizontally for example on the New releases I'll have to start scrolling right again after click on the details. Honestly, your website is probably the best implementation of a SPA website with multiple pages I have ever seen I can recollect. It still has quirks though. I just don't see why you would want to make a website like this a SPA. Does that help a little? I wrote this quick, off the top of my head. I can try and provide more details maybe in an email or some other communication means too.
- endymi0n 8y ago
  Hey, that's super helpful, thanks! Why SPA? Well, a good question indeed. Actually, we're cross-compiling the same code for the webapp onto iOS and Android targets with build flags, where we're leveraging more platform features (i.e. geolocate cinemas). Also, it lets us make the experience itself much more snappy once you're on the page, as there's just content to be re-loaded. You can switch tabs, we can remember scroll positions, stuff like this. Stay tuned though for our completely rewritten release based on very recent technology, I'm hopeful this will change your perception about SPAs on large sites coming in March!
  - dagoat 8y ago
    > Stay tuned though for our completely rewritten release based on very recent technology Nothing can possibli go wrong