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Responsive websites pretty much killed this type of aesthetic. It would be an absolute nightmare to get this sort of design to work well while supporting mobile

Responsive websites pretty much killed this type of aesthetic. It would be an absolute nightmare to get this sort of design to work well while supporting mobile. It's a real pity, because the hybrid designs we get now all looks like a bunch of uninspired rectangles.

moron4hire 4y ago
This site works fine on mobile
- scotty79 4y ago
  Mobile design was something created for old phones that didn't have quite the resolution of computer monitors. Modern phones don't really need mobile designed sites.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Kinda doesn't though. Mobile most of all needs concessions for the much more limited input precision.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      Personally I prefer pinch zoom for input precision instead of overly mobile design.
  - cantaloa 4y ago
    You need text to scale and reflow to device width if you want text to be readable. This is one of the main reasons for mobile web design. Else you're stuck panning around the screen to read the text zoomed in. Once you decide to scale text to device size so that it's readable, you are stuck doing the rest of mobile web design (fluid layout).
    - kbelder 4y ago
      You need to allow users to scale text as desired, as the original web intended. You shouldn't make a site targeted to mobile; you should make a site that allows the user to display in their client as they wish. The problem will fix itself.
      - cantaloa 4y ago
        To solve that, you have to move from the easier static made-for-one-width design (what we think of as desktop-first design) and move to fluid, reflowable design which we tend to call mobile-friendly design. Unfortunately, it tends to take more thought because we usually want widescreen components, like sidebars, that are easier to build when you can hard-code a device width, and hard-coding width is what breaks zooming and text size changes.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  If by fine you mean I need to zoom and pan to read it then I guess it does, but I doubt anyone would call that "working well on mobile".
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    I would take >need to zoom and pan to read over every time I forbidden to pan and zoom by the site author. Especially when I'm behind 43" 4k monitor and the site decide WHAT TEN LINES PER SCREEN IS EVERYTHING I WISHED FOR
  - FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
    It works way better for me on mobile than most new sites do. Developers assume everyone has the latest iPhone or Pixel. So they take like a minute to load, heat my phone up, drop the battery by 10%, and have a 20% chance of OOM-ing my browser. The Guardian is the absolute worst at this. I don't know why, it brings mobile Firefox to its knees. Basically, fancy "mobile friendly" JS is no good if it makes my phone stutter and go catatonic. Whereas if people just wrote old school "CSS Zen Garden" sites, or even this old table stuff, any ancient phone could handle them easily. But no, I need to go pay a kid to dig up more coltan. I can scroll. It's ok. What I can't do is will my phone faster, without shelling out more stupid cash.
tokai 4y ago
People should just stop making web pages for mobile. So many times I have had to force the desktop version of a page to actually get what I'm there for.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  The handset is a dead concept and yet here we are carrying them around it’s sad. I can’t remember the last time I put a phone to my face yet that is exactly what the form factor was made for. It’s all but guaranteed Apple cannibalizes the phone handset market for a new mobile platform.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  I think the real dead end is making websites for both mobile and desktop. They are simply too different to ever have any real hope of producing something that translates well to both without hopelessly crippling one of them. Mobile-only sites, sure. Desktop-only sites, why not. If you want both, do both instead of making a hideous web design Cronenberg pleading for the relief of death.
  - bookofjoe 4y ago
    Back when mobile exploded I got a bee in my bonnet that I had to have an app for my website. I spent a couple thousand dollars to have a highly recommended mobile website designer do this for me. The result was HORRIBLE and I decided to just live with what I had. Turns out my native website on mobile looks GREAT, far better than on a computer screen. Go figure.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    > hideous web design Cronenberg Deep cut
  - whstl 4y ago
    I find that responsive design works well for simpler webpages. But for more complex pages or apps, yeah: it totally falls apart. However... whenever I see an app or site that has two separate websites, I know I'm in for trouble: sometimes one version will miss some features, and I'll invariably have to request the desktop website. The worst of them was my previous health insurance provider, that only had one very important feature in the mobile version.
donkeybeer 4y ago
The trick for mobile is to go even simpler: plain unstyled html is as responsive as it gets.

moron4hire 4y ago

This site works fine on mobile

scotty79 4y ago
Mobile design was something created for old phones that didn't have quite the resolution of computer monitors. Modern phones don't really need mobile designed sites.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Kinda doesn't though. Mobile most of all needs concessions for the much more limited input precision.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    Personally I prefer pinch zoom for input precision instead of overly mobile design.
- cantaloa 4y ago
  You need text to scale and reflow to device width if you want text to be readable. This is one of the main reasons for mobile web design. Else you're stuck panning around the screen to read the text zoomed in. Once you decide to scale text to device size so that it's readable, you are stuck doing the rest of mobile web design (fluid layout).
  - kbelder 4y ago
    You need to allow users to scale text as desired, as the original web intended. You shouldn't make a site targeted to mobile; you should make a site that allows the user to display in their client as they wish. The problem will fix itself.
    - cantaloa 4y ago
      To solve that, you have to move from the easier static made-for-one-width design (what we think of as desktop-first design) and move to fluid, reflowable design which we tend to call mobile-friendly design. Unfortunately, it tends to take more thought because we usually want widescreen components, like sidebars, that are easier to build when you can hard-code a device width, and hard-coding width is what breaks zooming and text size changes.
moonchrome 4y ago
If by fine you mean I need to zoom and pan to read it then I guess it does, but I doubt anyone would call that "working well on mobile".
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  I would take >need to zoom and pan to read over every time I forbidden to pan and zoom by the site author. Especially when I'm behind 43" 4k monitor and the site decide WHAT TEN LINES PER SCREEN IS EVERYTHING I WISHED FOR
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  It works way better for me on mobile than most new sites do. Developers assume everyone has the latest iPhone or Pixel. So they take like a minute to load, heat my phone up, drop the battery by 10%, and have a 20% chance of OOM-ing my browser. The Guardian is the absolute worst at this. I don't know why, it brings mobile Firefox to its knees. Basically, fancy "mobile friendly" JS is no good if it makes my phone stutter and go catatonic. Whereas if people just wrote old school "CSS Zen Garden" sites, or even this old table stuff, any ancient phone could handle them easily. But no, I need to go pay a kid to dig up more coltan. I can scroll. It's ok. What I can't do is will my phone faster, without shelling out more stupid cash.

tokai 4y ago

People should just stop making web pages for mobile. So many times I have had to force the desktop version of a page to actually get what I'm there for.

birdyrooster 4y ago
The handset is a dead concept and yet here we are carrying them around it’s sad. I can’t remember the last time I put a phone to my face yet that is exactly what the form factor was made for. It’s all but guaranteed Apple cannibalizes the phone handset market for a new mobile platform.
marginalia_nu 4y ago
I think the real dead end is making websites for both mobile and desktop. They are simply too different to ever have any real hope of producing something that translates well to both without hopelessly crippling one of them. Mobile-only sites, sure. Desktop-only sites, why not. If you want both, do both instead of making a hideous web design Cronenberg pleading for the relief of death.
- bookofjoe 4y ago
  Back when mobile exploded I got a bee in my bonnet that I had to have an app for my website. I spent a couple thousand dollars to have a highly recommended mobile website designer do this for me. The result was HORRIBLE and I decided to just live with what I had. Turns out my native website on mobile looks GREAT, far better than on a computer screen. Go figure.
- tomcam 4y ago
  > hideous web design Cronenberg Deep cut
- whstl 4y ago
  I find that responsive design works well for simpler webpages. But for more complex pages or apps, yeah: it totally falls apart. However... whenever I see an app or site that has two separate websites, I know I'm in for trouble: sometimes one version will miss some features, and I'll invariably have to request the desktop website. The worst of them was my previous health insurance provider, that only had one very important feature in the mobile version.

donkeybeer 4y ago

The trick for mobile is to go even simpler: plain unstyled html is as responsive as it gets.