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That, and the density. I like desktop UIs to be dense. They don't have to be sparse with ample padding like on mobile devices since you don't poke your fingers

That, and the density. I like desktop UIs to be dense. They don't have to be sparse with ample padding like on mobile devices since you don't poke your fingers into your monitor. Yet somehow, people keep designing desktop UIs as if there's a touchscreen or something.

duderific 5y ago
It's basic typographic design philosophy around whitespace - your eye needs somewhere to rest, and narrow columns of text are just easier to read. I personally like ample padding and whitespace, and don't want wall to wall content that just looks like a jumbled mess.
- xemdetia 5y ago
  I agree with these typography principles when they are applied to things that should be read from top to bottom and the entirety of the content actually consumed as a whole. There's just many circumstances that it is not appropriate and I would say an encyclopedia entry is not one of them. I want to be able to scan a lot of content without having to change pages to find where I want to start reading from. That and people are really abusing the modern typography principle to get me to scroll more and 'engage' rather than just convey the information in a nice way (most news sites and recipe sites are egregious) that I'm starting to get turned off by the style for the web even though it's based in good reasoning. For print it's still fine because you are also limited and also it's often a two-column layout which is still pretty efficient for scanning for key words or phrases while being easy to read. 'Above the fold' used to mean something but in current web so much content wants to apply these principles but also wants me to scroll ten miles get to the actual point of the content and it feels really disrespectful to me as the reader.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- wruza 5y ago
  What is typographic around buttons, toolbars and other panes? your eye needs somewhere to rest There is a big difference between newspaper columns and web whitespace. The former are more or less uniform and easily seen (I’ve also read newspapers with explicit delineation of separate articles, and it was even better experience). The latter is just chaotic blobs of whitespace, which doesn’t usually even delineate or makes your eyes rest, it makes them lost instead. You can’t see structure, because it is so blobby. Whitespace should only surround the elements which are much more dense and “thicker” than it. Otherwise it will blend into them dissolving any structure.
busymom0 5y ago
> people keep designing desktop UIs as if there's a touchscreen or something I think that also has to do with "more white space = more scrolling = more ads". Reddit is a perfect example of this. When they "updated" their UI to the current one, they added a ton of extra white space which forced people to scroll longer, thus spending more time on the site and viewing more ads. They also use a ton of other dark patterns.
- grishka 5y ago
  > I think that also has to do with "more white space = more scrolling = more ads". When applied to the web, maybe, yes. But then there are desktop apps, and entire operating systems, designed this way. I think it has something to do with the phones after all. Everything is "mobile first" these days (to a ridiculous degree — there's a large grocery delivery service in my city that is ONLY available through a mobile app, so they lost me as a customer), so designers have much more experience with touchscreen UIs. Desktop anything feels like an afterthought oftentimes. It's just easier to take a mobile UI, blow it up to a computer screen, or put it into a window, optionally add a dual-pane layout, and call it a day. That, and the fact how many designers regard the result of their work as a thing in itself, an art piece to be admired, instead of merely a coat of paint on a tool that just helps people get their f-ing stuff done more efficiently and then gets out of the way.
- everybodyknows 5y ago
  Along with a tiny body font, the effect is to more or less force you to maximize the window to make the site usable -- i.e. commandeer your desktop. Squarespace was an "innovator" in this technique.

duderific 5y ago

It's basic typographic design philosophy around whitespace - your eye needs somewhere to rest, and narrow columns of text are just easier to read. I personally like ample padding and whitespace, and don't want wall to wall content that just looks like a jumbled mess.

xemdetia 5y ago
I agree with these typography principles when they are applied to things that should be read from top to bottom and the entirety of the content actually consumed as a whole. There's just many circumstances that it is not appropriate and I would say an encyclopedia entry is not one of them. I want to be able to scan a lot of content without having to change pages to find where I want to start reading from. That and people are really abusing the modern typography principle to get me to scroll more and 'engage' rather than just convey the information in a nice way (most news sites and recipe sites are egregious) that I'm starting to get turned off by the style for the web even though it's based in good reasoning. For print it's still fine because you are also limited and also it's often a two-column layout which is still pretty efficient for scanning for key words or phrases while being easy to read. 'Above the fold' used to mean something but in current web so much content wants to apply these principles but also wants me to scroll ten miles get to the actual point of the content and it feels really disrespectful to me as the reader.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wruza 5y ago
What is typographic around buttons, toolbars and other panes? your eye needs somewhere to rest There is a big difference between newspaper columns and web whitespace. The former are more or less uniform and easily seen (I’ve also read newspapers with explicit delineation of separate articles, and it was even better experience). The latter is just chaotic blobs of whitespace, which doesn’t usually even delineate or makes your eyes rest, it makes them lost instead. You can’t see structure, because it is so blobby. Whitespace should only surround the elements which are much more dense and “thicker” than it. Otherwise it will blend into them dissolving any structure.

busymom0 5y ago

> people keep designing desktop UIs as if there's a touchscreen or something I think that also has to do with "more white space = more scrolling = more ads". Reddit is a perfect example of this. When they "updated" their UI to the current one, they added a ton of extra white space which forced people to scroll longer, thus spending more time on the site and viewing more ads. They also use a ton of other dark patterns.

grishka 5y ago
> I think that also has to do with "more white space = more scrolling = more ads". When applied to the web, maybe, yes. But then there are desktop apps, and entire operating systems, designed this way. I think it has something to do with the phones after all. Everything is "mobile first" these days (to a ridiculous degree — there's a large grocery delivery service in my city that is ONLY available through a mobile app, so they lost me as a customer), so designers have much more experience with touchscreen UIs. Desktop anything feels like an afterthought oftentimes. It's just easier to take a mobile UI, blow it up to a computer screen, or put it into a window, optionally add a dual-pane layout, and call it a day. That, and the fact how many designers regard the result of their work as a thing in itself, an art piece to be admired, instead of merely a coat of paint on a tool that just helps people get their f-ing stuff done more efficiently and then gets out of the way.
everybodyknows 5y ago
Along with a tiny body font, the effect is to more or less force you to maximize the window to make the site usable -- i.e. commandeer your desktop. Squarespace was an "innovator" in this technique.