4 ms·

Ironically enough, I was reading the article on my iPad and I immediately moved the display to an arms-distance to ease the reading of such a futilely big font.

Ironically enough, I was reading the article on my iPad and I immediately moved the display to an arms-distance to ease the reading of such a futilely big font. Ok, hipster typography. I get it. Then I read this: "The idea is that since text is meant to be read, our task is to make the process of reading it as comfortable as possible. This means that whoever reading should be able to do so without straining their eyes or having to move closer to (or further from) the screen. Just as if they were comfortably reading a book from their favorite armchair." Enough with this bullshit. If you make an assertion this bold, you back it up. For real. I completely lost interest in what the essay was really about and left.

morsch 13y ago
Where is this bold assertion? I find it hard to see how one could feel so strongly one way or another about the quoted sentences. For real.
adrianhoward 13y ago
No design will please everybody of course. For me it was just about right. So the question becomes - what is the best for the majority. What makes a useful default. Over the years doing usability tests I've seen far more complaints about text being too small, along with no complaints but obvious problems (watching people move their head closer to the screen, etc.). Putting that together with the fact that almost nobody in the "real world" knows how to zoom in or out. That there are lots and lots of people whose eyesight is not even close 20/20. That as age your pupil size decreases and you just get less light into the eye (see http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/EHSL-Moran-Neuro-opth/id/105 http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/EHSL-Moran-Ne... for example). That a bunch of research work on font size and legibility has been done (see the sources on http://guidelines.usability.gov/guidelines/113 http://guidelines.usability.gov/guidelines/113 for example.)... and I'd rather err on the size of slightly too large than slightly too small. Again and again I come across designs put together by a designer in their twenties with 20/20 or better vision that just fails miserably when used by "normal" people. And it will certainly not please everybody. No design pleases everybody. There's a huge amount of non-utilitarian stuff around how people react to designs. Just having things be different from "normal" can cause folk to react badly against something. I sometimes wonder if the approach some developers have to typography is driven from us spending so much time looking at code full of of long lines where getting the most text possible on the page is utilitarian in ways unrelated to just reading from top-to-bottom.
noir_lord 13y ago
As someone who is in his mid-30's and wears spectacles I absolutely adore the type on this site. In fact with the exception of the font used by Readability I can't think of one clearer I've seen recently.
wingerlang 13y ago
It was the opposite for me, even before reading I thought about how the site seemed very easy to read. Macbook on my knees though, I will have a look at it on my iPad later.
DanBC 13y ago
I freaking loved this site on iPhone. Font size was perfect. Margins and borders and everything were lovely. I prefer a not white background, but I am pleased they had high contrast between font and BG. So many designery articles are posted to HN that are almost unreadable because of weird stupid choices made so I'm please to see something that was so pleasant to read.
xentronium 13y ago
> Ironically enough, I was reading the article on my iPad and I immediately moved the display to an arms-distance to ease the reading of such a futilely big font. Ok, hipster typography. FWIW, I felt immediate relief of not having to press cmd+plus several times because it's exactly the font size I read HN at.

morsch 13y ago

Where is this bold assertion? I find it hard to see how one could feel so strongly one way or another about the quoted sentences. For real.

adrianhoward 13y ago

No design will please everybody of course. For me it was just about right. So the question becomes - what is the best for the majority. What makes a useful default. Over the years doing usability tests I've seen far more complaints about text being too small, along with no complaints but obvious problems (watching people move their head closer to the screen, etc.). Putting that together with the fact that almost nobody in the "real world" knows how to zoom in or out. That there are lots and lots of people whose eyesight is not even close 20/20. That as age your pupil size decreases and you just get less light into the eye (see http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/EHSL-Moran-Neuro-opth/id/105 http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/EHSL-Moran-Ne... for example). That a bunch of research work on font size and legibility has been done (see the sources on http://guidelines.usability.gov/guidelines/113 http://guidelines.usability.gov/guidelines/113 for example.)... and I'd rather err on the size of slightly too large than slightly too small. Again and again I come across designs put together by a designer in their twenties with 20/20 or better vision that just fails miserably when used by "normal" people. And it will certainly not please everybody. No design pleases everybody. There's a huge amount of non-utilitarian stuff around how people react to designs. Just having things be different from "normal" can cause folk to react badly against something. I sometimes wonder if the approach some developers have to typography is driven from us spending so much time looking at code full of of long lines where getting the most text possible on the page is utilitarian in ways unrelated to just reading from top-to-bottom.

noir_lord 13y ago

As someone who is in his mid-30's and wears spectacles I absolutely adore the type on this site. In fact with the exception of the font used by Readability I can't think of one clearer I've seen recently.

wingerlang 13y ago

It was the opposite for me, even before reading I thought about how the site seemed very easy to read. Macbook on my knees though, I will have a look at it on my iPad later.

DanBC 13y ago

I freaking loved this site on iPhone. Font size was perfect. Margins and borders and everything were lovely. I prefer a not white background, but I am pleased they had high contrast between font and BG. So many designery articles are posted to HN that are almost unreadable because of weird stupid choices made so I'm please to see something that was so pleasant to read.

xentronium 13y ago

> Ironically enough, I was reading the article on my iPad and I immediately moved the display to an arms-distance to ease the reading of such a futilely big font. Ok, hipster typography. FWIW, I felt immediate relief of not having to press cmd+plus several times because it's exactly the font size I read HN at.