3 ms·

That's a really tired take, developer-centricity instead of user-. Line length too long in the current container width? Divide the text into columns.

kbenson 4y ago
> developer-centricity instead of user Hardly. The user centric take is mobile, is the majority of all website traffic and I'm not even addressing at all. What I'm doing is making a case that desktop users actually make better use of their monitors that have gotten larger over time, and not just maximizes windows, and for developers to not assume everyone else maximizes windows. Most people browse using a mobile device now, so really this is about the dwindling few left that have a personal desktop computer they use. That's gamers, professionals and office workers. I think most of those have already learnt this lesson, that when you need to have multiple programs opened at once, maximizing one isn't super effective. > Line length too long in the current container width? Divide the text into columns. Or just maximize for no reason and have room for other windows if you want, or zoom the content, whichever makes the most sense for your current situation. Requiring someone design their site around being able to dynamically expand to multiple columns, and figure out how to make that work well with what may be side menus and any number of other design choices all because a minority (probably a minority of a minority) set of users wants to maximize to their own detriment seems kind of ridiculous. People know how to zoom. They do it all the time on sites that are legitimately hard to read or when they are having problems (if I happen to be without my glasses I zoom the shit out of sites). The only people I hear complaining about this are developers who expect maximizing to continue to have the same benefit it did a decade or two ago even though everything else has changes, which is why I think it's rich that this is being called developer centric.
- cantSpellSober 4y ago
  > The user centric take is mobile Mobile-first, but supporting wide displays too. Optimize for line length, break into columns in wide containers. Don't "blame" your users for maximizing windows or prescribe an optimal viewport width. (thanks for discussing)
  - kbenson 4y ago
    I'm not trying to blame users, I'm saying, regardless of what started the conversation (I could care less about this design), that people should perhaps stop maximizing everything on large displays, if that's something they do, as it may be counterproductive. As for websites providing a singular column view, and sized specifically, there are a lot of reasons for that, and there are also reasons why a multi-column view makes little sense (which of the possible ways does scrolling work if the content can't fit on the screen?). Multiple text columns worked for print media because they had a fixed format, and were also size constrained in pages, meaning they were heavily incentivized to put as much on a page as they could. Text books often have some similar constraints (because there's so much information contained), so rather than 700 smaller pages, they use less pages but multiple columns, but even then they often try to break it up with images and diagrams so it's less common. Recreational reading is probably the closest to the optimal form of comfortably reading, and that uses smaller format singular column pages. That's not going to translate exactly to the web, but something that is taken into account is that longer line sizes make for things harder to read. With a maximum number of characters in a line size, to fill a window your choices are to either leave white space or use larger characters unless we want multiple columns, but those are harder to read and follow as well. Larger characters will result in less information on the screen at a time, and above a certain size is probably only minimally better than smaller characters, so what we commonly have is white space, for numerous reasons. There are many good reasons to have a singular column of specific size. People complaining about all the unused space when they can easily rectify that by zooming or resizing is silly, given all the other constraints that make that format optimal.
    - cantSpellSober 4y ago
      No, line length is for legibility. > I could care less [sic] about this design We can design it to be legible on narrow and wide displays > your choices are to either leave white space or use larger characters unless we want multiple columns We want multiple columns. That way you don't have to prescribe one single viewport width, you can support a range (this is called "responsive")

kbenson 4y ago

> developer-centricity instead of user Hardly. The user centric take is mobile, is the majority of all website traffic and I'm not even addressing at all. What I'm doing is making a case that desktop users actually make better use of their monitors that have gotten larger over time, and not just maximizes windows, and for developers to not assume everyone else maximizes windows. Most people browse using a mobile device now, so really this is about the dwindling few left that have a personal desktop computer they use. That's gamers, professionals and office workers. I think most of those have already learnt this lesson, that when you need to have multiple programs opened at once, maximizing one isn't super effective. > Line length too long in the current container width? Divide the text into columns. Or just maximize for no reason and have room for other windows if you want, or zoom the content, whichever makes the most sense for your current situation. Requiring someone design their site around being able to dynamically expand to multiple columns, and figure out how to make that work well with what may be side menus and any number of other design choices all because a minority (probably a minority of a minority) set of users wants to maximize to their own detriment seems kind of ridiculous. People know how to zoom. They do it all the time on sites that are legitimately hard to read or when they are having problems (if I happen to be without my glasses I zoom the shit out of sites). The only people I hear complaining about this are developers who expect maximizing to continue to have the same benefit it did a decade or two ago even though everything else has changes, which is why I think it's rich that this is being called developer centric.

cantSpellSober 4y ago
> The user centric take is mobile Mobile-first, but supporting wide displays too. Optimize for line length, break into columns in wide containers. Don't "blame" your users for maximizing windows or prescribe an optimal viewport width. (thanks for discussing)
- kbenson 4y ago
  I'm not trying to blame users, I'm saying, regardless of what started the conversation (I could care less about this design), that people should perhaps stop maximizing everything on large displays, if that's something they do, as it may be counterproductive. As for websites providing a singular column view, and sized specifically, there are a lot of reasons for that, and there are also reasons why a multi-column view makes little sense (which of the possible ways does scrolling work if the content can't fit on the screen?). Multiple text columns worked for print media because they had a fixed format, and were also size constrained in pages, meaning they were heavily incentivized to put as much on a page as they could. Text books often have some similar constraints (because there's so much information contained), so rather than 700 smaller pages, they use less pages but multiple columns, but even then they often try to break it up with images and diagrams so it's less common. Recreational reading is probably the closest to the optimal form of comfortably reading, and that uses smaller format singular column pages. That's not going to translate exactly to the web, but something that is taken into account is that longer line sizes make for things harder to read. With a maximum number of characters in a line size, to fill a window your choices are to either leave white space or use larger characters unless we want multiple columns, but those are harder to read and follow as well. Larger characters will result in less information on the screen at a time, and above a certain size is probably only minimally better than smaller characters, so what we commonly have is white space, for numerous reasons. There are many good reasons to have a singular column of specific size. People complaining about all the unused space when they can easily rectify that by zooming or resizing is silly, given all the other constraints that make that format optimal.
  - cantSpellSober 4y ago
    No, line length is for legibility. > I could care less [sic] about this design We can design it to be legible on narrow and wide displays > your choices are to either leave white space or use larger characters unless we want multiple columns We want multiple columns. That way you don't have to prescribe one single viewport width, you can support a range (this is called "responsive")