4 ms·

This seems especially true considering (a) how much web design has changed in the last few years due to mobile devices and the responsive web and (b) how unprep

by Osmium 13y ago

This seems especially true considering (a) how much web design has changed in the last few years due to mobile devices and the responsive web and (b) how unprepared we were for that change. I'm frequently reminded that the most readable and accessible (albeit, admittedly, boring) websites out there are ones that are just plain old-school HTML–no javascript, no CSS, or anything like that.

madeofpalk 13y ago
> I'm frequently reminded that the most readable [...] no CSS I doubt it. CSS can be a whole lot less than just fancy floats and parallax scrolling.
- jarrett 13y ago
  Yep. Namely: typeface, font size, line height, margins, font color, background color. Those are some pretty basic properties you'll want to set for even the most minimal design. CSS is how you set them. (I suspect that almost nobody would want to use the browser defaults for all these values.)
  - Osmium 13y ago
    I'm not saying I disagree, but there is a benefit to default values, and that's a unified design throughout the web. For the technically inclined, we can always use custom CSS, but often the people who would benefit the most from it are the people who would have the least idea how to do it. Edit: To put it another way, and bring it back on topic, it's no surprise Wikipedia uses black text on a white background with blue hyperlinks, and I doubt that will change any time soon. I do realise I'm basically describing Gopher here, and there's possibly a reason it didn't take off...
    - jarrett 13y ago
      > there is a benefit to default values, and that's a unified design throughout the web. If only browsers provided better defaults. As it stands, very few people would consider the browser defaults acceptable. > it's no surprise Wikipedia uses black text on a white background with blue hyperlinks Yes, Wikipedia does use black text, a white background, and blue links. But they do not merely rely upon the default browser stylesheets. They use custom font-face, font-size, line-height, and margin properties even for the basic <p> tag. And that's saying nothing about all the other elements that often have borders, padding, backgrounds, and so on.
    - madeofpalk 13y ago
      I think you could argue that browser ship with reasonable defaults for a slap of plain HTML, but what it undeniably gets wrong (and rightly so) is paragraphs running the full width of your window. There's a lot to be said about the Svbtle/Medium-style design with a small column running down the center of the page.
bjackman 13y ago
I would be inclined to agree with you, except for the fact that HTML-only text spans the entire screen with no margins. It's really hard to read two sentences on one line.
- kijin 13y ago
  Spanning the entire screen with no margins (or a mimimal default like 10px) is exactly what I want text to do on the tiny screen of my phone. Guess what, Wikipedia's mobile design does exactly that. The full-width text does get a bit annoying when you're trying to read Wikipedia on a 30" screen, but in that case, nothing's preventing you from snapping the browser window to the left or right half of the screen and/or increasing the zoom level to make for more comfortable reading.
  - madeofpalk 13y ago
    So what if there was a way that we could describle a simple set of rules that governed how paragraphs of text appeared in web pages? Perhaps we could make paragraphs 100% wide, up to a max width of 600px (and then centered in the screen)?
    - kijin 13y ago
      #content { width: 100%; max-width: 600px; margin: 0 auto; } But this is not going to work on Wikipedia. As the article mentions, Wikipedia is designed for quick scanning, not leisurely reading. When I'm quickly scanning the screen, I want as much of the screen as possible to be filled with text. I don't want over 2/3 of my 1920px screen to go to waste.
    - zeckalpha 13y ago
      http://kevinburke.bitbucket.org/markdowncss/ http://kevinburke.bitbucket.org/markdowncss/

by Osmium 13y ago

madeofpalk 13y ago

> I'm frequently reminded that the most readable [...] no CSS I doubt it. CSS can be a whole lot less than just fancy floats and parallax scrolling.

jarrett 13y ago
Yep. Namely: typeface, font size, line height, margins, font color, background color. Those are some pretty basic properties you'll want to set for even the most minimal design. CSS is how you set them. (I suspect that almost nobody would want to use the browser defaults for all these values.)
- Osmium 13y ago
  I'm not saying I disagree, but there is a benefit to default values, and that's a unified design throughout the web. For the technically inclined, we can always use custom CSS, but often the people who would benefit the most from it are the people who would have the least idea how to do it. Edit: To put it another way, and bring it back on topic, it's no surprise Wikipedia uses black text on a white background with blue hyperlinks, and I doubt that will change any time soon. I do realise I'm basically describing Gopher here, and there's possibly a reason it didn't take off...
  - jarrett 13y ago
    > there is a benefit to default values, and that's a unified design throughout the web. If only browsers provided better defaults. As it stands, very few people would consider the browser defaults acceptable. > it's no surprise Wikipedia uses black text on a white background with blue hyperlinks Yes, Wikipedia does use black text, a white background, and blue links. But they do not merely rely upon the default browser stylesheets. They use custom font-face, font-size, line-height, and margin properties even for the basic <p> tag. And that's saying nothing about all the other elements that often have borders, padding, backgrounds, and so on.
  - madeofpalk 13y ago
    I think you could argue that browser ship with reasonable defaults for a slap of plain HTML, but what it undeniably gets wrong (and rightly so) is paragraphs running the full width of your window. There's a lot to be said about the Svbtle/Medium-style design with a small column running down the center of the page.

bjackman 13y ago

I would be inclined to agree with you, except for the fact that HTML-only text spans the entire screen with no margins. It's really hard to read two sentences on one line.

kijin 13y ago
Spanning the entire screen with no margins (or a mimimal default like 10px) is exactly what I want text to do on the tiny screen of my phone. Guess what, Wikipedia's mobile design does exactly that. The full-width text does get a bit annoying when you're trying to read Wikipedia on a 30" screen, but in that case, nothing's preventing you from snapping the browser window to the left or right half of the screen and/or increasing the zoom level to make for more comfortable reading.
- madeofpalk 13y ago
  So what if there was a way that we could describle a simple set of rules that governed how paragraphs of text appeared in web pages? Perhaps we could make paragraphs 100% wide, up to a max width of 600px (and then centered in the screen)?
  - kijin 13y ago
    #content { width: 100%; max-width: 600px; margin: 0 auto; } But this is not going to work on Wikipedia. As the article mentions, Wikipedia is designed for quick scanning, not leisurely reading. When I'm quickly scanning the screen, I want as much of the screen as possible to be filled with text. I don't want over 2/3 of my 1920px screen to go to waste.
  - zeckalpha 13y ago
    http://kevinburke.bitbucket.org/markdowncss/ http://kevinburke.bitbucket.org/markdowncss/