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"Bikeshedding" has become yet another empty dismissal. The colour of a bikeshed is irrelevant when designing a nuclear reactor. But the "bikeshed" of a webpage

by Dewie 12y ago

"Bikeshedding" has become yet another empty dismissal. The colour of a bikeshed is irrelevant when designing a nuclear reactor. But the "bikeshed" of a webpage has to do with usability, which is a critical component of any webpage.

DanBC 12y ago
Yes, when someone submits a webpage the design of that page is up for discussion. Whe someone writes an interesting technical post about Cache Line Aliasing it's a shame when the most visible commet is a complaint about the blog platform. I want more articles like that on HN so I'm going to stop leaving empty comments about page design on HN unless, like this example, the design is an intrinsic part of the submission. And even here I could have worded my post much better. Having said all that: a lot of the stuff submitted here is not accessible and that's a shame. It feels like we've gone backwards. Where you used to have a web page that had keyboard navigable elements that would announce themselves to the assistive technology it feels like we now have apps that abandoned usability and started making it up as they go along. What happens when you press and hold and image? What happens when you put your phone into landscape? Who knows, everyone does things differently.
- elmerland 12y ago
  You make some good points and you are correct that my redesign of the manual is far from ideal in terms of accessibility. I will definitely take these things into consideration and improve upon them. This is not an area I'm familiar with, which is the perfect excuse to go a learn about it! In regards to the 'experimentation' done by websites. I would say that this 'experimentation' is something that should happen. How else are we supposed to discover new and better ways of doing things than by trying something different. Not all new things are better, and most of them fail. This trial and error, however eventually leads to better design and better 'standard' ways of doing things. It is unfortunate that today accessibility has fallen down the priority list. Likely, a side effect of all the new ways we can interact with our electronics. So above all let me say thank you! We need people like you who remind developers to keep accessibility a top priority.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Oh no! I wasn't talking a out your site in my post! I'm sorry, I should have been much clearer.

by Dewie 12y ago

DanBC 12y ago

Yes, when someone submits a webpage the design of that page is up for discussion. Whe someone writes an interesting technical post about Cache Line Aliasing it's a shame when the most visible commet is a complaint about the blog platform. I want more articles like that on HN so I'm going to stop leaving empty comments about page design on HN unless, like this example, the design is an intrinsic part of the submission. And even here I could have worded my post much better. Having said all that: a lot of the stuff submitted here is not accessible and that's a shame. It feels like we've gone backwards. Where you used to have a web page that had keyboard navigable elements that would announce themselves to the assistive technology it feels like we now have apps that abandoned usability and started making it up as they go along. What happens when you press and hold and image? What happens when you put your phone into landscape? Who knows, everyone does things differently.

elmerland 12y ago
You make some good points and you are correct that my redesign of the manual is far from ideal in terms of accessibility. I will definitely take these things into consideration and improve upon them. This is not an area I'm familiar with, which is the perfect excuse to go a learn about it! In regards to the 'experimentation' done by websites. I would say that this 'experimentation' is something that should happen. How else are we supposed to discover new and better ways of doing things than by trying something different. Not all new things are better, and most of them fail. This trial and error, however eventually leads to better design and better 'standard' ways of doing things. It is unfortunate that today accessibility has fallen down the priority list. Likely, a side effect of all the new ways we can interact with our electronics. So above all let me say thank you! We need people like you who remind developers to keep accessibility a top priority.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Oh no! I wasn't talking a out your site in my post! I'm sorry, I should have been much clearer.