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I feel like this is something you'll almost never worry about in 99% of websites. In fact, it doesn't even happen for native applications (deactivating features

I feel like this is something you'll almost never worry about in 99% of websites. In fact, it doesn't even happen for native applications (deactivating features based on battery life/free space/processing power). It'd be a bit jarring to have certain features suddenly disappear on the next page load, just because your resources dropped below certain thresholds decided by the developer?

ghayes 6y ago
Certain features might make sense. For instance, maybe you don’t preload off-screen images on a slow network connection?
hombre_fatal 6y ago
Well, it's not all that illuminating to imagine the arbitrarily bad UX you can build with something. Why not attempt the exercise of pondering good UX you could build with it? Native applications lack this kind of polish because all software lacks polish, not because it's a bad idea. "Can the application be improved in any way if it were to query battery life, connection strength, metered vs unmetered bandwidth, remaining disk space?" are thoughtful questions for any developer to ask, even if the answer is ultimately "No."
- learnstats2 6y ago
  > "Can the application be improved in any way if it were to query battery life, connection strength, metered vs unmetered bandwidth, remaining disk space?" are thoughtful questions for any developer to ask... I suspect the answer is typically "Yes, but putting this level of thought into any other area of development would have been more worthwhile".
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    Aside, I am amused that you cut off the end of my quote only to restate the part you cut off, so maybe I was unclear. Doing the deliberation, even if the answer ends up being "No" or "Not worth it", is a crucial part of UX design. Most people don't turn over those stones at all. e.g. Anyone with spotty or slow internet has had the realization that most desktop software has never been tested on a connection slower or less reliable than localhost, and quality software where it rears its head immediately stands out. It might seem like frivolous polish to be adaptive to the user's current connection speed, or it might give you a spot to put a smart variable knob that lets you build good software. But I'd also point out that we're not used to writing software that cares much about the user's resources like remaining battery life. We just write our iOS app and then depend on iOS' battery-saving mode (global throttle). It's just not something we're used to thinking about, so it's easy to be dismissive.
    - learnstats2 6y ago
      Not really a restatement. My answer included the deliberation as a poor use of time. > cares much about the user's resources like remaining battery life. If you are in a position where you care about user resources then you would generally minimise how you use it, globally, in every case. [I'd say that developers/product managers often do care about this, except that advertising is intentionally resource-greedy and will wreck any care given to this] If a user runs out of battery before the end of the day, that is as much (if not more) about what happened at the start of the day as it is at the end.
    - SGML_ROCKSTAR 6y ago
      Have you ever designed or developed (or both) for slower connections? "Slower" meaning something like 56k, 1G, or 2G? Do you happen to know of any people or groups that practice in such a way? I consider website design and development to _still_ be a craft that centers the end user, which suffers degradation of quality because of -- for lack of knowledge of a better name or phrase -- The Market.
chrismorgan 6y ago
It used to be extremely common to allow users to select features at install time, mostly in order to save disk space. It’s not particularly common any more, and I don’t think any app stores support the concept. Deactivating features based on battery life? That’s absolutely still a thing on native apps. If you throw Windows into battery saver mode, for example, the acrylic material becomes opaque; if you put Android into power saver mode, native controls will shut off their gratuitous animations, things like that. Nothing major, but a bunch of small things.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  It may be coming back. Latest Call of Duty has a lighter install option. And Fortnite is getting a lighter version as well.
- theamk 6y ago
  Note that’s a mode which needs to be explicitly activated by user, and the user is aware of. This is fine. The post offers something else: vague heuristics, different on each website, and no feedback or ways to override. See the difference?
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    I agree that it’s an important distinction, and disk space saving things are seldom automatic (but not never); but power saving mode is routinely activated without user input, e.g. Windows defaults to switching into it at 20%.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  > I don’t think any app stores support the concept At least the iOS App Store I believe supports splitting up assets and loading them after initial install (optionally?)
- tored 6y ago
  I have a crazy idea, lets code as if we were always on battery saving mode. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
XCSme 6y ago
I agree, this is like trying to optimize a very tiny edge-case instead of improving the general usage case.

ghayes 6y ago

Certain features might make sense. For instance, maybe you don’t preload off-screen images on a slow network connection?

hombre_fatal 6y ago

Well, it's not all that illuminating to imagine the arbitrarily bad UX you can build with something. Why not attempt the exercise of pondering good UX you could build with it? Native applications lack this kind of polish because all software lacks polish, not because it's a bad idea. "Can the application be improved in any way if it were to query battery life, connection strength, metered vs unmetered bandwidth, remaining disk space?" are thoughtful questions for any developer to ask, even if the answer is ultimately "No."

learnstats2 6y ago
> "Can the application be improved in any way if it were to query battery life, connection strength, metered vs unmetered bandwidth, remaining disk space?" are thoughtful questions for any developer to ask... I suspect the answer is typically "Yes, but putting this level of thought into any other area of development would have been more worthwhile".
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  Aside, I am amused that you cut off the end of my quote only to restate the part you cut off, so maybe I was unclear. Doing the deliberation, even if the answer ends up being "No" or "Not worth it", is a crucial part of UX design. Most people don't turn over those stones at all. e.g. Anyone with spotty or slow internet has had the realization that most desktop software has never been tested on a connection slower or less reliable than localhost, and quality software where it rears its head immediately stands out. It might seem like frivolous polish to be adaptive to the user's current connection speed, or it might give you a spot to put a smart variable knob that lets you build good software. But I'd also point out that we're not used to writing software that cares much about the user's resources like remaining battery life. We just write our iOS app and then depend on iOS' battery-saving mode (global throttle). It's just not something we're used to thinking about, so it's easy to be dismissive.
  - learnstats2 6y ago
    Not really a restatement. My answer included the deliberation as a poor use of time. > cares much about the user's resources like remaining battery life. If you are in a position where you care about user resources then you would generally minimise how you use it, globally, in every case. [I'd say that developers/product managers often do care about this, except that advertising is intentionally resource-greedy and will wreck any care given to this] If a user runs out of battery before the end of the day, that is as much (if not more) about what happened at the start of the day as it is at the end.
  - SGML_ROCKSTAR 6y ago
    Have you ever designed or developed (or both) for slower connections? "Slower" meaning something like 56k, 1G, or 2G? Do you happen to know of any people or groups that practice in such a way? I consider website design and development to _still_ be a craft that centers the end user, which suffers degradation of quality because of -- for lack of knowledge of a better name or phrase -- The Market.

chrismorgan 6y ago

It used to be extremely common to allow users to select features at install time, mostly in order to save disk space. It’s not particularly common any more, and I don’t think any app stores support the concept. Deactivating features based on battery life? That’s absolutely still a thing on native apps. If you throw Windows into battery saver mode, for example, the acrylic material becomes opaque; if you put Android into power saver mode, native controls will shut off their gratuitous animations, things like that. Nothing major, but a bunch of small things.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
It may be coming back. Latest Call of Duty has a lighter install option. And Fortnite is getting a lighter version as well.
theamk 6y ago
Note that’s a mode which needs to be explicitly activated by user, and the user is aware of. This is fine. The post offers something else: vague heuristics, different on each website, and no feedback or ways to override. See the difference?
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  I agree that it’s an important distinction, and disk space saving things are seldom automatic (but not never); but power saving mode is routinely activated without user input, e.g. Windows defaults to switching into it at 20%.
madeofpalk 6y ago
> I don’t think any app stores support the concept At least the iOS App Store I believe supports splitting up assets and loading them after initial install (optionally?)
tored 6y ago
I have a crazy idea, lets code as if we were always on battery saving mode. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

XCSme 6y ago

I agree, this is like trying to optimize a very tiny edge-case instead of improving the general usage case.