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You can have exquisite presentation with good choices of text, formatting and typography (including judicious use of colour, spacing and even animation and text

You can have exquisite presentation with good choices of text, formatting and typography (including judicious use of colour, spacing and even animation and textures). A luxury printed book full of beautiful details will feel much better than a cheap paperback. The best techniques can be applied in subtle ways to improve the overall presentation, without resorting to flashy showcases.

nicbou 4y ago
I agree with you. I'd love to see good examples of that, because I struggle to create that sort of websites. For example, how would you redesign the Python docs to feel like a beautifully typeset book does?
- TuringTest 4y ago
  Information can be beautiful on its own, if you follow some common patterns about contrast, clustering and hierarchy. These are based on the principles of Gestalt [1] which engineers can learn without having artsy skills by watching books and courses specific for us, e.g. [2]. Do you know about Edward Tufte? His work doesn't revolves specifically about software, but his principles show how to present technical information in the clearest way, and his books [3] are beautiful examples on how to put a technical topic in book form with clean and beautiful layouts. [1] https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt... [2] https://medium.com/bigcommerce-developer-blog/design-for-developers-the-principles-of-visual-design-672f1fc1fc64 https://medium.com/bigcommerce-developer-blog/design-for-dev... [3] https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi
- kccqzy 4y ago
  A lot of Python docs are in fact pretty well designed to resemble a book without completely breaking the fluidity of the web page. They use serif fonts, apply font weights and colors subtly. In fact I think they strike the right balance between just being a regular webpage and completely succumbing to the constraints of the book as media. https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.2.x/ https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.2.x/

nicbou 4y ago

I agree with you. I'd love to see good examples of that, because I struggle to create that sort of websites. For example, how would you redesign the Python docs to feel like a beautifully typeset book does?

TuringTest 4y ago
Information can be beautiful on its own, if you follow some common patterns about contrast, clustering and hierarchy. These are based on the principles of Gestalt [1] which engineers can learn without having artsy skills by watching books and courses specific for us, e.g. [2]. Do you know about Edward Tufte? His work doesn't revolves specifically about software, but his principles show how to present technical information in the clearest way, and his books [3] are beautiful examples on how to put a technical topic in book form with clean and beautiful layouts. [1] https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt... [2] https://medium.com/bigcommerce-developer-blog/design-for-developers-the-principles-of-visual-design-672f1fc1fc64 https://medium.com/bigcommerce-developer-blog/design-for-dev... [3] https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi
kccqzy 4y ago
A lot of Python docs are in fact pretty well designed to resemble a book without completely breaking the fluidity of the web page. They use serif fonts, apply font weights and colors subtly. In fact I think they strike the right balance between just being a regular webpage and completely succumbing to the constraints of the book as media. https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.2.x/ https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.2.x/