4 ms·

there's an interesting discussion to be had here around desktop vs mobile applications/UIs. Despite the promise of the existence of a unifying paradigm I find t

there's an interesting discussion to be had here around desktop vs mobile applications/UIs. Despite the promise of the existence of a unifying paradigm I find that often technology providers pick a preference or a preference bleeds through culture (more of our QAs use this device) or by pandering to the majority user (typically phones today). In our case I imagine the culture of traditionally accessing HN through an IDE-capable device results in the default being optimised for desktop use. Spotify recently (well over a year ago now) merged its two clients with the mobile UI being the winner. Its interesting how as a desktop user you notice all these imperfections where you are now the loser. The search is top(ish) left instead of top right and various UI elements work now _so_ much better when you are able to swipe right (to easily navigate albums in a scrollable carousel) or swiftly swipe downwards (where on desktop one must find and drag a scrollbar). I imagine we've all experienced some of the more irksome manifestations that have already transpired due to this schism such as: websites that tell you to download an application, a support call for a broken web function that results in "use the mobile app, it works there" and isn't fixed for weeks or months, or the horrific pop-ups that encourage the use of one or the other application as dev teams hint at their disinclination to continue minority support.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>Despite the promise of the existence of a unifying paradigm I find that often technology providers pick a preference or a preference bleeds through culture that promise was a myth. The closest we got to it was responsive design and flex boxes, which are less there because there's "one size fits all" and more because it's trying to make it less painful to tweak your page for desktop vs. mobile. Many companies fall towards the latter, so a ood 95% of the time there will be a "base design", with other platforms simply being "ports". At the end of the day, they are two different problems, so they will have two different solutions (you know, unless we enter some Cyberpunk rennassaince where humans can grow precise stylus-like appendages). The above solutions were made because it wasn't cost effective to run two different websites perfectly optimized for their respective medium.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>Despite the promise of the existence of a unifying paradigm I find that often technology providers pick a preference or a preference bleeds through culture that promise was a myth. The closest we got to it was responsive design and flex boxes, which are less there because there's "one size fits all" and more because it's trying to make it less painful to tweak your page for desktop vs. mobile. Many companies fall towards the latter, so a ood 95% of the time there will be a "base design", with other platforms simply being "ports". At the end of the day, they are two different problems, so they will have two different solutions (you know, unless we enter some Cyberpunk rennassaince where humans can grow precise stylus-like appendages). The above solutions were made because it wasn't cost effective to run two different websites perfectly optimized for their respective medium.