9 ms·

The real problem is that designing for different screen sizes, especially with responsive design, is very difficult. For my personal projects, screen size is t

The real problem is that designing for different screen sizes, especially with responsive design, is very difficult. For my personal projects, screen size is the factor used to determine layout. Mobile/tablet/laptop/desktop is irrelevant. My goal with smaller viewports is to make the layout as similar as possible, without the user having to scroll horizontally. Because I don't want to change the layout too much, I do not use hidden navigation menus. Hamburger menus are terrible - I see them as a design copout.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Nathanael_M 6y ago
I'm curious what your menu solution is. I agree hamburger menus besmirch the good name of the hamburger, but for longer menus they feel like at least an acceptable solution.
- InfiniteRand 6y ago
  I like gear icons, sometimes they don't map to exactly the semantics of what is in a menu, but if there are no other possible menu elements than I know to go to the gear icon. I've become used to the hamburger menu, but it still doesn't catch my eye (Chrome's now three dot option is even worse at this), gear looks noticeably different than the rest of the UI and so I can easily spot it for options.
Hendrikto 6y ago
> Hamburger menus are terrible - I see them as a design copout. I am genuinely interested in why. The only reason I can think of, is that they may me unintuitive, but I think this is becoming less and less of a problem. Hamburger menus are an accepted and pervasive design element. That does not means it’s good design, but it means that users are familiar with the concept. Familiarity goes a long way to ensuring good UX.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  There's a lot of "literature" about the shortcomings of hamburger menus and "junk drawer navigation" that come up when i google the topic.
- zdragnar 6y ago
  Just use the word "menu". The hamburger menu (and its cousin, the three vertical dots) have no analogy to the real world. Sure, it has become more common, but for anyone not already familiar with it, it is utterly useless. You have to be willing to click random things to discover what it does. From personal experience, I had to train both my wife and mother to look for them, neither of whom had the patience otherwise to figure out these cute designs. They may be common at the sites you look at, but that doesnt help people who have only used sites without them, or only used portions of sites accessible without clicking on them. I consider that to be an utter failure.
dahfizz 6y ago
The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.
- asiando 6y ago
  It’s not that hard to display a few paragraphs. It’s hard to display complex pieces of information while also making them look good to the client (which, we should remember, pays our bills)
- Spooks 6y ago
  HN is a pretty minimal site though - it is just a message board.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    A message board like HN is more difficult than you think to get right across a wide range of screen sizes, just because comments can nest many levels deep. HN arguably has problems of its own in that regard.
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    Almost all websites are pretty minimal in terms of their features, but they're built as if they were an in-browser image editor. Reddit is barely more than HN with pictures and a LOT of bloat inbetween. It could be as minimal as 4chan-style imageboards if you add voting and a slightly different comment view. Youtube is just a tiled list of thumbnails or an embedded video player followed by a list of thumbnails. It could work 100% without JS outside of the video controls. Instead it's a huge, slow mess. It's also inconsistent; in my case it scales the list of videos from subscriptions to about 50% of the browser window's width, leaving a chunk of empty space on the sides. The startpage with basically the same layout always uses the full width.
    - dahfizz 6y ago
      100% agree. The kneejerk reaction of "well HN is so simple, of course it has a simple design" has the causation backwards. You only realize how simple HN is because they stick to a simple design! 99% of websites are (could be) just static text and images. Facebook, Reddit, CNN etc could look like HN. Amazon could look like craigs list. The amount of sites that actually need and are enhanced by JS bloat is very low.
fasdf1122 6y ago
For my own ventures, I always use a fixed width layout. Saves an almost infinite amount of time, tricky bugs, and therefore a lot of $. Designers produce designs and you just take the pixel dimensions it always looks good. Done. OTOH, when clients tell me they want responsive design - no problem! It's job security, and I bill by the hour ;)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Nathanael_M 6y ago

I'm curious what your menu solution is. I agree hamburger menus besmirch the good name of the hamburger, but for longer menus they feel like at least an acceptable solution.

InfiniteRand 6y ago
I like gear icons, sometimes they don't map to exactly the semantics of what is in a menu, but if there are no other possible menu elements than I know to go to the gear icon. I've become used to the hamburger menu, but it still doesn't catch my eye (Chrome's now three dot option is even worse at this), gear looks noticeably different than the rest of the UI and so I can easily spot it for options.

Hendrikto 6y ago

> Hamburger menus are terrible - I see them as a design copout. I am genuinely interested in why. The only reason I can think of, is that they may me unintuitive, but I think this is becoming less and less of a problem. Hamburger menus are an accepted and pervasive design element. That does not means it’s good design, but it means that users are familiar with the concept. Familiarity goes a long way to ensuring good UX.

madeofpalk 6y ago
There's a lot of "literature" about the shortcomings of hamburger menus and "junk drawer navigation" that come up when i google the topic.
zdragnar 6y ago
Just use the word "menu". The hamburger menu (and its cousin, the three vertical dots) have no analogy to the real world. Sure, it has become more common, but for anyone not already familiar with it, it is utterly useless. You have to be willing to click random things to discover what it does. From personal experience, I had to train both my wife and mother to look for them, neither of whom had the patience otherwise to figure out these cute designs. They may be common at the sites you look at, but that doesnt help people who have only used sites without them, or only used portions of sites accessible without clicking on them. I consider that to be an utter failure.

dahfizz 6y ago

The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.

asiando 6y ago
It’s not that hard to display a few paragraphs. It’s hard to display complex pieces of information while also making them look good to the client (which, we should remember, pays our bills)
Spooks 6y ago
HN is a pretty minimal site though - it is just a message board.
- majewsky 6y ago
  A message board like HN is more difficult than you think to get right across a wide range of screen sizes, just because comments can nest many levels deep. HN arguably has problems of its own in that regard.
- alpaca128 6y ago
  Almost all websites are pretty minimal in terms of their features, but they're built as if they were an in-browser image editor. Reddit is barely more than HN with pictures and a LOT of bloat inbetween. It could be as minimal as 4chan-style imageboards if you add voting and a slightly different comment view. Youtube is just a tiled list of thumbnails or an embedded video player followed by a list of thumbnails. It could work 100% without JS outside of the video controls. Instead it's a huge, slow mess. It's also inconsistent; in my case it scales the list of videos from subscriptions to about 50% of the browser window's width, leaving a chunk of empty space on the sides. The startpage with basically the same layout always uses the full width.
  - dahfizz 6y ago
    100% agree. The kneejerk reaction of "well HN is so simple, of course it has a simple design" has the causation backwards. You only realize how simple HN is because they stick to a simple design! 99% of websites are (could be) just static text and images. Facebook, Reddit, CNN etc could look like HN. Amazon could look like craigs list. The amount of sites that actually need and are enhanced by JS bloat is very low.

fasdf1122 6y ago

For my own ventures, I always use a fixed width layout. Saves an almost infinite amount of time, tricky bugs, and therefore a lot of $. Designers produce designs and you just take the pixel dimensions it always looks good. Done. OTOH, when clients tell me they want responsive design - no problem! It's job security, and I bill by the hour ;)