13 ms·

There is a small irony that when reading an article about mobile UX, the website has disabled zoom meaning I can't actually see any of the images in the article

There is a small irony that when reading an article about mobile UX, the website has disabled zoom meaning I can't actually see any of the images in the article.

tgb 11y ago
And to enlarge the pictures with small font, you have to click twice since the first link takes you to twitter of all places.
eterm 11y ago
And once again the top comment here is a meta-comment addressing the article formatting rather than the article itself. Can't we just let that stuff go and address the article itself?
- briandear 11y ago
  Actually, in this particular case, I'd argue that this is incredibly relevant: Preacher preaches against UX sin. Commits UX sin with a non-zooming harlot.
  - hellofunk 11y ago
    Absolutely. Meta comments are often more important than the article they comment on, especially when they place the worthiness of an article in proper context.
  - huskyr 11y ago
    No, it's not relevant at all. It's not a dumb rant against dropdowns: it's a well written piece with lots of examples and arguments that show which UX patterns are better than a dropdown for specific usecases. That's not preaching, it's explaining. Finding a small flaw in his site and using that to downplay the quality of the article and the competence of the author is shortsighted, rude and unfair. Nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. Bragging about it on Hacker News doesn't help anyone.
    - Goladus 11y ago
      Good point. I will say, though, that disabled zoom is a for more prevalent, annoying, and chronic problem than dropdowns. It's orders of magnitude difference. Like, years to days. As in, maybe once or twice a year I get annoyed by a misplaced dropdown, whereas every couple of days I get annoyed by disabled zoom. One can make a solid critique of the wine at dinner but it's not irrelevant to point out the restaurant is on fire.
    - anonymousab 11y ago
      It isn't really a small flaw when your article about mobile faux pas doesn't work on mobile for many. It's just people making a comment about that fact and other people agreeing or responding with an opinion. That discussion isn't stopping anyone from discussing anything else.
- DanBC 11y ago
  In general I agree with you. (As do the mods, see what dang says here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 ) But this article is specifically about design for mobile, and it contains a design element that is hostile to mobile use; and we are unable to talk about the content of the article because a lot of it is in the images, which are unreadably small. It's also a bit disturbing that a comment asking for a wide section of society to not be excluded from some content is met with "just ignore it". Edit: changed "your" to "some". Also, I don't think parent comment deserves downvotes. I upvoted it.
  - eterm 11y ago
    It's not my content, I don't know what made you think that. And mobile users aren't a "section of society", they're everyone. This isn't about exclusionism. Yes, having an article about mobile UX design that isn't available on mobiles isn't good for mobile users, but it's no more hypocritical than a journal article about mobile UX design not being available on mobile, it's just the article being on a different form than the form being discussed. That happens, but it doesn't need to be the focus of discussion.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      Sorry about the "your", I had thought I edited that out.
- mkagenius 11y ago
  To zoom on the first picture, i tried pinch zoom --> didnt work --> tried clicking --> took me to twitter --> again had to click on the image --> again didnt work. Finally read the article by guessing what is happening in the image.
cbaleanu 11y ago
Chrome on Android has a very useful setting to force zoom. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Force Enable Zoom - Profit :) Not sure if Safari has something similar though.
- 0942v8653 11y ago
  Here's a bookmarklet you can use to enable zoom: javascript:m=document.querySelector('meta%5Bname=viewport%5D');m.content=m.content.replace(/.*(width=%5B%5E,%5D+).*/,%22$1,maximum-scale=10,minimum-scale=0.1,user-scalable=1%22); I found it on HN a while ago, I wish i knew where. To add it bookmark another page then go into bookmarks edit mode and change the URL to that.
  - el_duderino 11y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- pgrimes 11y ago
  But should expect our audience to do extra work to make something usable?
  - cbaleanu 11y ago
    Absolutely not. Disabling default zoom behavior is like hijacking the scroll bar - bad, ugly and puts users off. Also horrible is the tri state or undeterminate checkbox. All of the above are very trendy pieces of 'css and html codes' commonly found on popular DIY web dev sites. *edit: spelling
    - err4nt 11y ago
      I do a lot of responsive design, and I turn zooming off So I CAN give you a proper responsive design that you can read and interact with on a small touchscreen. Why on earth would you prefer to pan around a desktop site designed for a big screen with a tiny cursor when you've got a tiny screen and a massive cursor (fingertip)?
paulsutter 11y ago
The images look great in landscape mode. But it's still an absolute crime to disable zoom. Skype has the most egregious dropdown - country code with 200 menu items - when it would be so much easier to type the country code along with the number.
bite_victim 11y ago
Yes, the internet is full of these so called experts. How do they end up being upvoted here is telling about the quality of the average reader unfortunately. Sorry if I am hurting feelings here but it is true. You have to be a special flake if you think this is quality content. So please, go ahead with your reactions, they speak volumes about who exactly is the gross of HN.
- DanBC 11y ago
  That's harsh. I learnt stuff from the article; it seems reasonable enough. Which bits did you especially disagree with, and what would you recommend instead?
- lftl 11y ago
  This article made me think about my usage of dropdowns on mobile, and presented a few alternatives that I'll probably reach for more often now. As far as people being so called experts I'm not sure you're going to find someone with much more experience than Luke: http://www.lukew.com/about/ http://www.lukew.com/about/
- bonif 11y ago
  You're talking about yourself. If you had the opportunity to actually read HN for some time, you'd know there is no "average" here. None of us can be an expert in every field, but the level of knowledge you can find on HN is something I've never seen before
hobarrera 11y ago
Can zoom just fine on firefox, so it's probably not a cross-browser thing. But yeah, it's still incredibly ironic.

There is a small irony that when reading an article about mobile UX, the website has disabled zoom meaning I can't actually see any of the images in the article.

tgb 11y ago

And to enlarge the pictures with small font, you have to click twice since the first link takes you to twitter of all places.

eterm 11y ago

And once again the top comment here is a meta-comment addressing the article formatting rather than the article itself. Can't we just let that stuff go and address the article itself?

briandear 11y ago
Actually, in this particular case, I'd argue that this is incredibly relevant: Preacher preaches against UX sin. Commits UX sin with a non-zooming harlot.
- hellofunk 11y ago
  Absolutely. Meta comments are often more important than the article they comment on, especially when they place the worthiness of an article in proper context.
- huskyr 11y ago
  No, it's not relevant at all. It's not a dumb rant against dropdowns: it's a well written piece with lots of examples and arguments that show which UX patterns are better than a dropdown for specific usecases. That's not preaching, it's explaining. Finding a small flaw in his site and using that to downplay the quality of the article and the competence of the author is shortsighted, rude and unfair. Nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. Bragging about it on Hacker News doesn't help anyone.
  - Goladus 11y ago
    Good point. I will say, though, that disabled zoom is a for more prevalent, annoying, and chronic problem than dropdowns. It's orders of magnitude difference. Like, years to days. As in, maybe once or twice a year I get annoyed by a misplaced dropdown, whereas every couple of days I get annoyed by disabled zoom. One can make a solid critique of the wine at dinner but it's not irrelevant to point out the restaurant is on fire.
  - anonymousab 11y ago
    It isn't really a small flaw when your article about mobile faux pas doesn't work on mobile for many. It's just people making a comment about that fact and other people agreeing or responding with an opinion. That discussion isn't stopping anyone from discussing anything else.
DanBC 11y ago
In general I agree with you. (As do the mods, see what dang says here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 ) But this article is specifically about design for mobile, and it contains a design element that is hostile to mobile use; and we are unable to talk about the content of the article because a lot of it is in the images, which are unreadably small. It's also a bit disturbing that a comment asking for a wide section of society to not be excluded from some content is met with "just ignore it". Edit: changed "your" to "some". Also, I don't think parent comment deserves downvotes. I upvoted it.
- eterm 11y ago
  It's not my content, I don't know what made you think that. And mobile users aren't a "section of society", they're everyone. This isn't about exclusionism. Yes, having an article about mobile UX design that isn't available on mobiles isn't good for mobile users, but it's no more hypocritical than a journal article about mobile UX design not being available on mobile, it's just the article being on a different form than the form being discussed. That happens, but it doesn't need to be the focus of discussion.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Sorry about the "your", I had thought I edited that out.
mkagenius 11y ago
To zoom on the first picture, i tried pinch zoom --> didnt work --> tried clicking --> took me to twitter --> again had to click on the image --> again didnt work. Finally read the article by guessing what is happening in the image.

cbaleanu 11y ago

Chrome on Android has a very useful setting to force zoom. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Force Enable Zoom - Profit :) Not sure if Safari has something similar though.

0942v8653 11y ago
Here's a bookmarklet you can use to enable zoom: javascript:m=document.querySelector('meta%5Bname=viewport%5D');m.content=m.content.replace(/.*(width=%5B%5E,%5D+).*/,%22$1,maximum-scale=10,minimum-scale=0.1,user-scalable=1%22); I found it on HN a while ago, I wish i knew where. To add it bookmark another page then go into bookmarks edit mode and change the URL to that.
- el_duderino 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414599
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pgrimes 11y ago
But should expect our audience to do extra work to make something usable?
- cbaleanu 11y ago
  Absolutely not. Disabling default zoom behavior is like hijacking the scroll bar - bad, ugly and puts users off. Also horrible is the tri state or undeterminate checkbox. All of the above are very trendy pieces of 'css and html codes' commonly found on popular DIY web dev sites. *edit: spelling
  - err4nt 11y ago
    I do a lot of responsive design, and I turn zooming off So I CAN give you a proper responsive design that you can read and interact with on a small touchscreen. Why on earth would you prefer to pan around a desktop site designed for a big screen with a tiny cursor when you've got a tiny screen and a massive cursor (fingertip)?

paulsutter 11y ago

The images look great in landscape mode. But it's still an absolute crime to disable zoom. Skype has the most egregious dropdown - country code with 200 menu items - when it would be so much easier to type the country code along with the number.

bite_victim 11y ago

Yes, the internet is full of these so called experts. How do they end up being upvoted here is telling about the quality of the average reader unfortunately. Sorry if I am hurting feelings here but it is true. You have to be a special flake if you think this is quality content. So please, go ahead with your reactions, they speak volumes about who exactly is the gross of HN.

DanBC 11y ago
That's harsh. I learnt stuff from the article; it seems reasonable enough. Which bits did you especially disagree with, and what would you recommend instead?
lftl 11y ago
This article made me think about my usage of dropdowns on mobile, and presented a few alternatives that I'll probably reach for more often now. As far as people being so called experts I'm not sure you're going to find someone with much more experience than Luke: http://www.lukew.com/about/ http://www.lukew.com/about/
bonif 11y ago
You're talking about yourself. If you had the opportunity to actually read HN for some time, you'd know there is no "average" here. None of us can be an expert in every field, but the level of knowledge you can find on HN is something I've never seen before

hobarrera 11y ago

Can zoom just fine on firefox, so it's probably not a cross-browser thing. But yeah, it's still incredibly ironic.