5 ms·

Agreed completely. One mistake that designers/developers do though is to completely give up under 1000px so we get this swaths of whitespace and a hamburger. T

Agreed completely. One mistake that designers/developers do though is to completely give up under 1000px so we get this swaths of whitespace and a hamburger. That’s a waste of estate and a waste of my time.

iamben 6y ago
Yeah, I still very often get "here is the desktop design, here is the mobile design". Depending on who is developing the designs depends how that's going to translate. I have all the time in the world for developers that reflow the page and remove/adjust elements at different breakpoints (based on the design) between 'desktop' and 'mobile' so the experience is good for everyone. Sadly, most people don't bother.
- tehbeard 6y ago
  Convincing a client to pay for time to spend checking the design and tweaking it in the space between the breakpoints can be more hassle than it's worth. That said, sane breakpoints can usually avoid unexpected hamburgers on the desktop.
  - dstick 6y ago
    Agreed, Tablet is the only intermediate I consider. The rest is just not worth the time investment.
    - iamben 6y ago
      What tablet? Aren't we talking pretty much anything between about ~500px and ~1200px here? That's pretty much tablet zone...
      - dstick 6y ago
        You caught me, for me that means col-md with Bootstrap ;-)
  - paledot 6y ago
    You convince them in the same way you convince a PM to give you time to write tests for your work: you don't give them an alternative. "You want this done? That'll be 20 billable hours." And your estimate includes the time needed to do work you're willing to sign your name to. When I hire a plumber or an architect, I tell them what needs doing, but I expect and trust that they'll put in the work (and bill me accordingly) to ensure that it gets done properly, even though I don't understand all of the specifics of what doing those jobs properly entails.
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  If desktop + mobile make up >95% of your audience it's hard to justify the cost of creating a third set of rules for the rest.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    That makes sense on the surface, but you should design for all possibilities, current and future. I learned this lesson the hard way. The client was on desktop. The users were 40% phones. Everything was great for months and months. Then one day the owner of the company that owned the company tried to look at the web site on her grandkid's iPad. Fan met shit that day.
    - owlmirror 6y ago
      that's something I don't understand. the Dev tools in Chrome and Firefox make it really easy to test through every resolution without problems. every UI change I make I view in all possible resolutions and its quite obvious of something breaks and I adjust accordingly.
      - DangerousPie 6y ago
        The tooling isn't the problem, time is. Every device and resolution you support takes time and at some point you hit a point of diminishing returns.
        account42 6y ago
        If it takes too much time, you are probably doing something wrong like having hardcoded layouts for different resolutions instead of using reflow as much as possible.
        innocenat 6y ago
        Even with all reflow it's hard. Should I reduce a width a little bit more so that it become 3 columns instead of 2 on iPad vertical at risk of having some line wrapped? Things like that.
- prox 6y ago
  I believe true webdesigners are in decline. You have lots of people who do this as a side gig after reading a few tutorials. In a way that’s a nice compliment for the accessibility of the tech, but not accessibility for the end user. Same with “We only tested this on Chrome.” of sites/apps, of which are there are many, as I can attest, as I never use Chrome.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    It's just plain hard to keep up with front-end tech. Most people use front-end dev work as an entry point. They quickly realize there are more sane jobs available on the backend and migrate there.
  - devmunchies 6y ago
    > sites/apps I don't think apps are as relevant to current discussion. For apps (not public websites), there are different requirements depending on the target audience. I wouldn't be mad at a B2B web app being desktop only, no mobile CSS. But I agree that web apps should still be compliant with safari + FF + Chrome.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    > I believe true webdesigners are in decline. You have lots of people who do this as a side gig after reading a few tutorials. In decline from when? Picking it up after reading a few tutorials has always been a common way to get into web work, and if anything I feel like it's been getting more professionalized over the last twenty years.
    - prox 6y ago
      Just the general gist over the last few years. I am not saying there are no really skilled professionals, I am just seeing a lot of lower par work from jobs I take over. Plus just by surfing the web and noting the quality.
      - girvo 6y ago
        I’ve been doing web development since 2007, and I’m struggling to think of an era that had more professionals doing front end than we have now. I’m not sure my experience agrees with you
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
I've emailed one of YC's huge successes multiple times over years about how it's frustrating to have horizontal scrolling on a browser that's half of a 1080p display wide (i.e., nearly 1000px). Unfortunately, the horizontal scrolling UX with substantial wasted whitespace on the sides remains.
- andylynch 6y ago
  It could be worse. One particular web app I use daily has horizontal scroll bars even when full screen (and has some off the main info at far right).
  - ansible 6y ago
    Name and shame. That's the only way it gets better.
    - pmalynin 6y ago
      Sounds like the Azure Dashboard, but I haven’t used it in years
  - FridgeSeal 6y ago
    This is the unmitigated disaster that is the Azure dashboard isn’t it?
jiofih 6y ago
For some reason people adopted 1040px-1080px as a default - I think it’s twitter Bootstrap’s fault. 980 or even less is much more reasonable.
rdsubhas 6y ago
I've found sites using Material UI guidelines (heavy use of cards and navbar hamburger) especially culpable to this. Huge gap of greyish whitespace with a hamburger in the left. Someone else mentioned bootstrap in the other thread too. Maybe because these Frameworks are hugely popular, their defaults amplify the impact. Definitely these values are tweakable.
- asiando 6y ago
  Users of CSS frameworks do it to cut corners and follow whatever the framework suggests. “The small breakpoint is 768px wide? I guess below it it’s a phone, I hope you like burgers”

iamben 6y ago

Yeah, I still very often get "here is the desktop design, here is the mobile design". Depending on who is developing the designs depends how that's going to translate. I have all the time in the world for developers that reflow the page and remove/adjust elements at different breakpoints (based on the design) between 'desktop' and 'mobile' so the experience is good for everyone. Sadly, most people don't bother.

tehbeard 6y ago
Convincing a client to pay for time to spend checking the design and tweaking it in the space between the breakpoints can be more hassle than it's worth. That said, sane breakpoints can usually avoid unexpected hamburgers on the desktop.
- dstick 6y ago
  Agreed, Tablet is the only intermediate I consider. The rest is just not worth the time investment.
  - iamben 6y ago
    What tablet? Aren't we talking pretty much anything between about ~500px and ~1200px here? That's pretty much tablet zone...
    - dstick 6y ago
      You caught me, for me that means col-md with Bootstrap ;-)
- paledot 6y ago
  You convince them in the same way you convince a PM to give you time to write tests for your work: you don't give them an alternative. "You want this done? That'll be 20 billable hours." And your estimate includes the time needed to do work you're willing to sign your name to. When I hire a plumber or an architect, I tell them what needs doing, but I expect and trust that they'll put in the work (and bill me accordingly) to ensure that it gets done properly, even though I don't understand all of the specifics of what doing those jobs properly entails.
DangerousPie 6y ago
If desktop + mobile make up >95% of your audience it's hard to justify the cost of creating a third set of rules for the rest.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  That makes sense on the surface, but you should design for all possibilities, current and future. I learned this lesson the hard way. The client was on desktop. The users were 40% phones. Everything was great for months and months. Then one day the owner of the company that owned the company tried to look at the web site on her grandkid's iPad. Fan met shit that day.
  - owlmirror 6y ago
    that's something I don't understand. the Dev tools in Chrome and Firefox make it really easy to test through every resolution without problems. every UI change I make I view in all possible resolutions and its quite obvious of something breaks and I adjust accordingly.
    - DangerousPie 6y ago
      The tooling isn't the problem, time is. Every device and resolution you support takes time and at some point you hit a point of diminishing returns.
      - account42 6y ago
        If it takes too much time, you are probably doing something wrong like having hardcoded layouts for different resolutions instead of using reflow as much as possible.
        innocenat 6y ago
        Even with all reflow it's hard. Should I reduce a width a little bit more so that it become 3 columns instead of 2 on iPad vertical at risk of having some line wrapped? Things like that.
prox 6y ago
I believe true webdesigners are in decline. You have lots of people who do this as a side gig after reading a few tutorials. In a way that’s a nice compliment for the accessibility of the tech, but not accessibility for the end user. Same with “We only tested this on Chrome.” of sites/apps, of which are there are many, as I can attest, as I never use Chrome.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  It's just plain hard to keep up with front-end tech. Most people use front-end dev work as an entry point. They quickly realize there are more sane jobs available on the backend and migrate there.
- devmunchies 6y ago
  > sites/apps I don't think apps are as relevant to current discussion. For apps (not public websites), there are different requirements depending on the target audience. I wouldn't be mad at a B2B web app being desktop only, no mobile CSS. But I agree that web apps should still be compliant with safari + FF + Chrome.
- jefftk 6y ago
  > I believe true webdesigners are in decline. You have lots of people who do this as a side gig after reading a few tutorials. In decline from when? Picking it up after reading a few tutorials has always been a common way to get into web work, and if anything I feel like it's been getting more professionalized over the last twenty years.
  - prox 6y ago
    Just the general gist over the last few years. I am not saying there are no really skilled professionals, I am just seeing a lot of lower par work from jobs I take over. Plus just by surfing the web and noting the quality.
    - girvo 6y ago
      I’ve been doing web development since 2007, and I’m struggling to think of an era that had more professionals doing front end than we have now. I’m not sure my experience agrees with you

AlchemistCamp 6y ago

I've emailed one of YC's huge successes multiple times over years about how it's frustrating to have horizontal scrolling on a browser that's half of a 1080p display wide (i.e., nearly 1000px). Unfortunately, the horizontal scrolling UX with substantial wasted whitespace on the sides remains.

andylynch 6y ago
It could be worse. One particular web app I use daily has horizontal scroll bars even when full screen (and has some off the main info at far right).
- ansible 6y ago
  Name and shame. That's the only way it gets better.
  - pmalynin 6y ago
    Sounds like the Azure Dashboard, but I haven’t used it in years
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  This is the unmitigated disaster that is the Azure dashboard isn’t it?

jiofih 6y ago

For some reason people adopted 1040px-1080px as a default - I think it’s twitter Bootstrap’s fault. 980 or even less is much more reasonable.

rdsubhas 6y ago

I've found sites using Material UI guidelines (heavy use of cards and navbar hamburger) especially culpable to this. Huge gap of greyish whitespace with a hamburger in the left. Someone else mentioned bootstrap in the other thread too. Maybe because these Frameworks are hugely popular, their defaults amplify the impact. Definitely these values are tweakable.

asiando 6y ago
Users of CSS frameworks do it to cut corners and follow whatever the framework suggests. “The small breakpoint is 768px wide? I guess below it it’s a phone, I hope you like burgers”