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You're missing the forest for the trees here. Sites are using pixels as a proxy for physical device size. Which obviously breaks. I doubt people actually int

You're missing the forest for the trees here. Sites are using pixels as a proxy for physical device size. Which obviously breaks. I doubt people actually intend to display mobile view on a 720px, 12" wide device. They're only working correctly if you ignore the intent and only look at the technical implementation. The technical implementation is flawed and doesn't accomplish the intent.

contravariant 6y ago
But the OP is using pixels as a proxy for screen size as well, they're deliberately presenting their screen as 720x1080 to make the fonts bigger because they are too far from the screen. The stupidest thing to do at that stage would be to say "ah I see you're running a low resolution on a huge screen, let me make all the text tiny".
- cratermoon 6y ago
  > they're deliberately presenting their screen as 720x1080 to make the fonts bigger because they are too far from the screen. As I read this I: 1. am wearing my computer reading glasses +1.5 2. have my browser set to zoom HN by 125% 3. am reading distance from the screen I know programming and tech in general is a young man's game, but let's at least try not to be ignorantly ageist & ableist.
  - contravariant 6y ago
    I have no such intention, I was merely rephrasing what they said: > But I find the fonts slightly too small at that resolution – given how far I sit from the screen.
    - samatman 6y ago
      Without accusing you of any -isms, OP merely said that, given how far they sit from the screen, the font is too small. You conflated that with sitting too far away. There are a lot of reasons why that might not be correct, including presbyopia. I think it's unlikely OP is sitting at that distance by accident, since it's pretty easy to move a monitor closer, so one of those reasons is more likely to apply than is your assumption.
      - contravariant 6y ago
        Since tone carries very badly let me say up front that I'm mostly just confused by this entire discussion. For now I stand by my assumption that OP wanted the fonts to be bigger because they were too far from the screen to read them at their current size. Though I fear I can't see why their reason for wanting fonts to be bigger would matter. I could have omitted OP's reason for wanting the fonts to be bigger but I thought a brief description would help keep the discussion related to the article. The main thing I was advocating was that software should allow fonts to be bigger regardless of physical size, but clearly I've somehow allowed my argument to be horribly misconstrued.
  - Brian_K_White 6y ago
    I think their point was that if you want fonts to be bigger, there are settings to do that. (or should be even if the world isn't perfect yet) Same to a lesser extent for other ui features. In reality, as of today, so far, neither desktops nor apps are that good where you can have the display set at it's correct native resolution, while having buttons, menus, icons, text, window controls etc all scale to preference. But saying that that's what should happen rather than lie to the software about the hardware, is not agist or ableist. I think the point was simply that fundamentally, lying to the software about the hardware is always inherently doomed to produce some form of incorrect result, and when it does, it's not the tech's fault for failing to second-guess, work-around, and essentially thwart your actively dishonest misconfiguration.
  - strken 6y ago
    You're not disagreeing with the argument or conclusion of that post, though: it would be bad for sites to look at dpi and determine the native screen width without factoring in zoom level, because doing so would make text unreadable for you.
- Retric 6y ago
  More to the point he is using multiple edge cases at the same time and dislikes the result he’s getting. He then suggests other people accommodate him. Sorry, as long as the site still works it’s simply not worth it.

contravariant 6y ago

But the OP is using pixels as a proxy for screen size as well, they're deliberately presenting their screen as 720x1080 to make the fonts bigger because they are too far from the screen. The stupidest thing to do at that stage would be to say "ah I see you're running a low resolution on a huge screen, let me make all the text tiny".

cratermoon 6y ago
> they're deliberately presenting their screen as 720x1080 to make the fonts bigger because they are too far from the screen. As I read this I: 1. am wearing my computer reading glasses +1.5 2. have my browser set to zoom HN by 125% 3. am reading distance from the screen I know programming and tech in general is a young man's game, but let's at least try not to be ignorantly ageist & ableist.
- contravariant 6y ago
  I have no such intention, I was merely rephrasing what they said: > But I find the fonts slightly too small at that resolution – given how far I sit from the screen.
  - samatman 6y ago
    Without accusing you of any -isms, OP merely said that, given how far they sit from the screen, the font is too small. You conflated that with sitting too far away. There are a lot of reasons why that might not be correct, including presbyopia. I think it's unlikely OP is sitting at that distance by accident, since it's pretty easy to move a monitor closer, so one of those reasons is more likely to apply than is your assumption.
    - contravariant 6y ago
      Since tone carries very badly let me say up front that I'm mostly just confused by this entire discussion. For now I stand by my assumption that OP wanted the fonts to be bigger because they were too far from the screen to read them at their current size. Though I fear I can't see why their reason for wanting fonts to be bigger would matter. I could have omitted OP's reason for wanting the fonts to be bigger but I thought a brief description would help keep the discussion related to the article. The main thing I was advocating was that software should allow fonts to be bigger regardless of physical size, but clearly I've somehow allowed my argument to be horribly misconstrued.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  I think their point was that if you want fonts to be bigger, there are settings to do that. (or should be even if the world isn't perfect yet) Same to a lesser extent for other ui features. In reality, as of today, so far, neither desktops nor apps are that good where you can have the display set at it's correct native resolution, while having buttons, menus, icons, text, window controls etc all scale to preference. But saying that that's what should happen rather than lie to the software about the hardware, is not agist or ableist. I think the point was simply that fundamentally, lying to the software about the hardware is always inherently doomed to produce some form of incorrect result, and when it does, it's not the tech's fault for failing to second-guess, work-around, and essentially thwart your actively dishonest misconfiguration.
- strken 6y ago
  You're not disagreeing with the argument or conclusion of that post, though: it would be bad for sites to look at dpi and determine the native screen width without factoring in zoom level, because doing so would make text unreadable for you.
Retric 6y ago
More to the point he is using multiple edge cases at the same time and dislikes the result he’s getting. He then suggests other people accommodate him. Sorry, as long as the site still works it’s simply not worth it.