4 ms·

A good observation, but why do you need to serve a mobile and a desktop version of your site in the first place? You can with modern HTML and CSS make a website

A good observation, but why do you need to serve a mobile and a desktop version of your site in the first place? You can with modern HTML and CSS make a website that works perfectly on mobile and desktop, without having to serve a different version for the different platform. It doesn't make sense to make the choice of what to render on the user agent: for example if it says Android, what does it mean? It is probably a smartphone, but it could also be a tablet, a TV, or even a PC! An even more stupid idea is to redirect the user to a different domain if you detect that the user agent is mobile, since it usually work one way and thus if you share on a chat the link to the mobile version of the site and the other one opens it on a desktop there is no easy way to get back to the desktop site (most of the times I have to modify the URL!)

grishka 6y ago
I might be a minority, but I don't like modern adaptive websites. They try really hard to work on both touch and non-touch devices with the same underlying markup, and more often than not end up being terrible on both. You end up with these giant, touch-friendly buttons on desktops. Making all your paddings and layouts and font sizes dynamically adapt to the interaction paradigm is hard and almost no one's doing it. Then there are some interactions that are only possible on desktops — like hovering things to reveal menus or tooltips; these websites rarely make use of the unique properties of the mouse. Or sometimes they do but then you happened to open it on your phone and you have to tap and hold the thing to trigger the hover. And so on. > It is probably a smartphone, but it could also be a tablet, a TV, or even a PC! That's what the "request desktop website" setting is for. > An even more stupid idea is to redirect the user to a different domain if you detect that the user agent is mobile Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Either the sites you’re visiting are doing it wrong, or you’re expecting a density of pixels that never worked well for most mouse users already.
  - grishka 6y ago
    I'm using either a 27" 1440p monitor or the built-in screen of my 15" macbook. Either way, modern web makes fonts and UI elements a tad bigger than they have to be, and there's usually too much area wasted on whitespace between them. Desktop UIs are meant to be compact because mice and trackpads allow nearly pixel-level positioning. Mobile UIs, on the other hand, have to have large elements and ample spacing between them because tapping stuff with your fingers is inherently imprecise. You can't really have both these things at the same time. Out of websites that are currently live and have good desktop versions, I'd point out HN and reddit (the old design). And then there's Facebook who has separate mobile and desktop websites but recently chose to redesign its desktop one to look very mobile... I can't imagine the justification behind this one.
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      You're certainly welcome to prefer more compact UIs on your very large screens, but it's only that: a preference. There are many reasons why other people either prefer or need (i.e. accessibility, touch) larger text and UI elements to be able to use these websites. I personally prefer (and may well someday need) larger text and UI elements, because my vision and motor skills have gradually declined. I also prefer (and soft-need) lower information density because higher density is a cognitive challenge (ADHD).
account42 6y ago
> An even more stupid idea is to redirect the user to a different domain if you detect that the user agent is mobile, since it usually work one way and thus if you share on a chat the link to the mobile version of the site and the other one opens it on a desktop there is no easy way to get back to the desktop site (most of the times I have to modify the URL!) Absolutetly this - the number of people sharing m. links for Wikipedia when is just annoying. And there is absolutely no excuse for having different HTML for today's smartphones and Desktops. For text sites like Wikipedia you shouldn't even need media queries or any fancy stuff - just avoid fixed (minimum) widths and use <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> to tell broken-by-design mobile browsers that your website is not broken and can be rendered normally instead of in a giant viewport.

grishka 6y ago

I might be a minority, but I don't like modern adaptive websites. They try really hard to work on both touch and non-touch devices with the same underlying markup, and more often than not end up being terrible on both. You end up with these giant, touch-friendly buttons on desktops. Making all your paddings and layouts and font sizes dynamically adapt to the interaction paradigm is hard and almost no one's doing it. Then there are some interactions that are only possible on desktops — like hovering things to reveal menus or tooltips; these websites rarely make use of the unique properties of the mouse. Or sometimes they do but then you happened to open it on your phone and you have to tap and hold the thing to trigger the hover. And so on. > It is probably a smartphone, but it could also be a tablet, a TV, or even a PC! That's what the "request desktop website" setting is for. > An even more stupid idea is to redirect the user to a different domain if you detect that the user agent is mobile Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
Either the sites you’re visiting are doing it wrong, or you’re expecting a density of pixels that never worked well for most mouse users already.
- grishka 6y ago
  I'm using either a 27" 1440p monitor or the built-in screen of my 15" macbook. Either way, modern web makes fonts and UI elements a tad bigger than they have to be, and there's usually too much area wasted on whitespace between them. Desktop UIs are meant to be compact because mice and trackpads allow nearly pixel-level positioning. Mobile UIs, on the other hand, have to have large elements and ample spacing between them because tapping stuff with your fingers is inherently imprecise. You can't really have both these things at the same time. Out of websites that are currently live and have good desktop versions, I'd point out HN and reddit (the old design). And then there's Facebook who has separate mobile and desktop websites but recently chose to redesign its desktop one to look very mobile... I can't imagine the justification behind this one.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    You're certainly welcome to prefer more compact UIs on your very large screens, but it's only that: a preference. There are many reasons why other people either prefer or need (i.e. accessibility, touch) larger text and UI elements to be able to use these websites. I personally prefer (and may well someday need) larger text and UI elements, because my vision and motor skills have gradually declined. I also prefer (and soft-need) lower information density because higher density is a cognitive challenge (ADHD).

account42 6y ago

> An even more stupid idea is to redirect the user to a different domain if you detect that the user agent is mobile, since it usually work one way and thus if you share on a chat the link to the mobile version of the site and the other one opens it on a desktop there is no easy way to get back to the desktop site (most of the times I have to modify the URL!) Absolutetly this - the number of people sharing m. links for Wikipedia when is just annoying. And there is absolutely no excuse for having different HTML for today's smartphones and Desktops. For text sites like Wikipedia you shouldn't even need media queries or any fancy stuff - just avoid fixed (minimum) widths and use <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> to tell broken-by-design mobile browsers that your website is not broken and can be rendered normally instead of in a giant viewport.