Replying to comments about our web page design

https://research.exoticsilicon.com/articles/replying_to_comments

by nhanb • 3 years ago

282 203 3 years ago

research.exoticsilicon.com

nhanb4• 3 years ago

I've always liked ExoticSilicon's design, but not until this post did I realize their smart bit of CSS for default font size:

  font-size: min(max(1em, 1.3vw), 1.3em);

Which explains why it looks just right on my high-DPI Chromebook even though I haven't configured a big enough default font size for the browser.

This is going to be the default font-size for all of my websites now (preceded by a fallback for maximum compatibility of course).

notRobot• 3 years ago

Here's an explanation of this expression from Phind: https://www.phind.com/search?cache=bd161914-4d18-4758-b540-2...

andy_ppp• 3 years ago

Make the font scale from a minimum of 1em to 1.3% of the screen width with a maximum width of 1.3em?

hgsgm5• 3 years ago

Amazing how many words is uses to say nothing.

The only mysterious parts of the expression are how the em and wv units work.

eajakobsen• 3 years ago

If you want it to be even more readable you could do the following:

    font-size: clamp(1em, 1.3vw, 1.3em);

I would also consider using `rem` instead of `em` incase you want to use it anywhere other than the root element.

nhanb4• 3 years ago

I would only use this kind of thing on the root element, then size all other elements relative to the root element e.g. h1 { font-size: 1.5rem; }. It's more manageable that way IMHO.

Thanks for the tip on clamp() by the way, TIL.

hgsgm5• 3 years ago

That's less reasable bwcause the order of arguments is mysterious.

itsuka• 3 years ago

I don't see any issues with this particular code (although for larger sizes, there may be an accessibility issue related to zooming). In general, I would recommend avoiding the use of vw-only units because the computed value may not change with zoom.

I learned this from https://adrianroselli.com/2019/12/responsive-type-and-zoom.h...

Poppys3• 3 years ago

https://utopia.fyi/blog/designing-with-fluid-type-scales

This is a good write up of using clamp and fluid type

account422• 3 years ago

I absolutely hate this. Viewport width has nothing to do with DPI and should not affect the font size. I didn't get a larger monitor just so that everything can waste more space with giant text.

unosama4• 3 years ago

That's the thing. These hacks alwways end up negatively impacting some edge cases. I found a site once that used JS to autosize the text... as a result you couldn't manually resize with ctrl - and ctrl+.. It's better to stick to standards

nhanb4• 3 years ago

I didn't get a larger monitor just so that everything can waste more space with giant text.

That's what the outer min() is for: it makes sure the font size caps out at 1.3em which usually translates to 16 x 1.3 = 20.8px, which is well within the recommended size range for prose anyway.

What that whole snippet does boils down to exactly what they said in the article:

The main global stylesheet uses the browser default font size, smoothly scaled up to 130% on higher-resolution displays as the baseline for the body text of the whole document.

On a low-dpi screen, nothing changes. On a high-dpi one, if you haven't set your browser text size to something larger, this snippet saves you from tiny unreadable text. Also note that ctrl+ and ctrl- to zoom still work just fine. It's not as dramatic a change as the sibling comment said. You can try it out on their site to see for yourself.

LanternLight83• 3 years ago

I've always loved the site too c:

petercooper• 3 years ago

That's it, I've completed the Internet. This is my new favorite page. The aesthete in me may bristle, but the pragmatist agrees. There are many ergonomic and UX concerns to consider when designing things, but I think they make their case very well and I didn't find it a problem to read at all.

pas• 3 years ago

the background distracts too much, but otherwise it's pretty readable.

bombcar4• 3 years ago

There are various themes and it works well on mobile and doesn’t look like every single other website out there today, so I count it as a win.

It’s kind of how so many LaTeX documents look the same because nobody bothers to design anything; the inverse problem from Word where things are too easy to change.

sethammons• 3 years ago

my designs draw from styles and concepts typical of 8-bit computer magazines in the late 1980s and early 1990s

I think they channel the feeling quite well

tpowell• 3 years ago

If you enjoy a bit of well-done nostalgia, I suggest giving vacation.inc [1] a try, too (same guys from poolsuite.net [2]).

[1] https://www.vacation.inc [2] https://poolsuite.net

spatulon• 3 years ago

Is that Apple Garamond?

pell• 3 years ago

Big fan of Poolsuite!

Another one is here: https://www.vistaserv.net/

The font rendering is especially impressive to me. You can read more about it here: https://www.vistaserv.net/blog/90s-fonts-modern-browsers

kyleyeats• 3 years ago

I love the indignation over being accused of 90s web design when they are actually in fact inspired by 90s print design.

kloch• 3 years ago

Yes. Their design reminds me of WIRED magazine from the 1990's, not at all like web pages from the 1990's.

h2odragon• 3 years ago

Their "80s theme" should be more widely used

pmontra• 3 years ago

Well, the current trend of gradients in text colors (usually purple to blue) is something we were told not to do in the 90s, because it would make our sites look like cheap videogames from the 80s. We would be doing it with GIFs.

However inventing something new is really difficult especially after the space of the ideas had been explored for a long time.

As for fashion, once you exhausted all the variations of the current fad you have to start again with an old one, with a twist. The result is that all those new web sites look old to me.

Exoticsilicon looks really old.

AstixAndBelix• 3 years ago

progressive

nothing progressive about this design. just call yourself peculiar instead of giving this veneer of betterment

gryfft• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app

paulcole• 3 years ago

just call yourself peculiar instead of giving this veneer of betterment

A leader in the clubhouse for the Accidental HN Slogan of the Year award.

Veen• 3 years ago

The widespread adoption of this credo would improve modern life immeasurably.

unsupp0rted• 3 years ago

If you insist on trying to use ‘reader’ mode to view our webpages, then you are simply creating your own problems.

have_faith• 3 years ago

The only thing the design needs is a max width on the paragraphs for large screens.

blowski10• 3 years ago

I suspect they would reply with "resize your browser window".

kevincox• 3 years ago

This is shockingly common but do these people resize their window for every site they visit? Or they keep the window narrow and then sites with side navigation need to put it somewhere else?

Having a large window should be telling the site "you have this space, make the best of it". Maybe it would be nice to have a built-in CSS property for "desired reading text width" but I think most people can pick a number and it is generally good for most readers.

8ig8• 3 years ago

You agree not to use the content to train AI systems or machine learning systems.

https://research.exoticsilicon.com/terms

First I’ve seen that.

capableweb2• 3 years ago

Seems unlikely to be enforceable as "overly expansive", as someone could surely argue our brains are just AI and/or ML but in organic form. Does that mean I'm not allowed to learn from the website?

weird-eye-issue2• 3 years ago

Are you aware of what the "A" in AI and the "M" in ML stand for?

lelanthran• 3 years ago

as someone could surely argue our brains are just AI and/or ML but in organic form.

Our brains are artificial intelligence? Humans are machine learning?

I mean, c'mon. If humans are artificial, then what do you call real? If humans are machines, then what on earth isn't?

pxoe• 3 years ago

someone could surely argue

No, they could not. Even if they did, those things are just different. It won't change what AI/ML is, a bunch of bytes in memory and on a disk. Just making a bunch of reaching comparisons, won't absolve AI/ML of responsibility.

unosama4• 3 years ago

Neural networks are modeled of human brains in some ways but the majority of AI is not and humans just anthropomorphize the results. Humans don't take in terabytes of data and spend hours fitting a multidimensional regression between labels and the raw data. We build logical connections to understand things over continued exposure. Just because AI "feels" human does not mean it approaches anything actually resembling a human mind. What holds us back from understanding this in the legal system is the fact that lawyers and judges are so technically illiterate.

xyproto• 3 years ago

I think this is AI generated, because of obvious mistakes like listing elements of 90's web design which includes "sans-serif" and then in the next paragraph insisting that no 90's web design elements are used, while all the headers uses a sans-serif font.

danuker• 3 years ago

You'd probably get a reply that sans-serif fonts were invented in ancient Greece.

nhanb4• 3 years ago

You misread. They said the opposite:

Websites in the, (late), 1990s were characterised by many things, but a typical list might include:
- Serif fonts

KronisLV• 3 years ago

Tried out all of their themes on the welcome page, which seems like a nice showcase of what's available when you switch the themes: https://research.exoticsilicon.com/welcome

Here's the aspects that I personally enjoyed:

  - Tropical nights: this feels like a pleasant theme on the eyes, almost like an IDE dark mode
  - Nitrate memories: another theme that feels fairly readable, with the contrast being okay in *most* places
  - Light pastels: this one dials down the colors a little bit so they're not as distracting

That said, when most of the web looks more or less the same way, it feels like this site stands out too much and the design detracts from the experience, in my eyes. For example, opening the page linked in this post, you're confronted with colorful shadows, titles (the questions) in a serif font that's not as bold as the answers that come in a sans serif font, a static background for when you scroll the content that's an image that you can't quite read.

I'd probably just have a chuckle about the quirky design and go browse other sites that might have the information that I'm looking for, due to my eyes scanning them more quickly and easily, much like you'd look at data in a spreadsheet (sans annoying pop-ups and other dark patterns that web is plagued with). But you know what? Their website design is none of my business, it's fine for them to make their own choices and run it how they desire, even if some of the answers on this particular page are a bit on the nose.

Can't say whether we'd benefit from more or less of that, in general, though.

JohnFen11• 3 years ago

That said, when most of the web looks more or less the same way, it feels like this site stands out too much and the design detracts from the experience, in my eyes.

The site's design is not to my taste -- but I seriously love that it doesn't look like almost all of the rest of the web.

Most of the web all looks the same. I applaud Exotic Silicon for pushing back against that.

rektide3• 3 years ago

I really really miss the multi-skinned website thing. Having multiple personalities for your site was such just a rip roaring cool thing. That whole idea of a site being an experience has gotten simmered away. In many cases that reduction of friction is due & appreciated, but there's something to be said for having a bit of an experience too, even if it is a kind of shallow/transactional bit.

My first webshack internship had a nice website with like 20+ very slick early web designs folks could switch between. So cool.

There's the Css Zen Garden, a set of html elements to practice your design chops on. That was so the spirit of web design, highlighted so powerfully how bodaciously rad having html structured information & css styling as separate entities was, rather than as almost all UI toolkit do having the two concerns more intermingled. Zen Garden Forever. https://www.csszengarden.com/

activitypea• 3 years ago

They want the Cruelty Squad audience

zagrebian11• 3 years ago

Stop using the site immediately and consult a qualified ophthalmologist. Seriously, no static display on a modern and correctly adjusted VDU such as a computer monitor or phone screen should ever be inducing headaches or eyestrain in a healthy individual when properly used for reasonable time periods, and with sufficient breaks. If it is, you may have an underlying health condition which has otherwise gone un-noticed.

So they’re saying that they’re aware that their website is inaccessible to some people with certain health conditions, and they don’t intend to do anything about it.

That’s like if a grocery store with a staircase at the front door put up a sign that says, “If you have trouble climbing these stairs, consult your doctor. No person with healthy legs should have trouble climbing these stairs. You may have a health condition.”

I mean, thanks for the advice, but you’re still excluding people.

pmelendez• 3 years ago

The tone of the website has a very tongue-in-cheek tone to me. Taking it seriously is like doing journalism research using The Onion.

zagrebian11• 3 years ago

How does a person who can’t read the text because of their health issues know that it’s tongue in cheek?

flappyeagle• 3 years ago

This is not a grocery store. It’s a niche enthusiast website.

It’s supposed to be fun. Many fun things “exclude” people. Sports for instance. Music. Painting. There might be accessible versions. There are also inaccessible ones that trade off artistic expression over other factors. The internet is a big place. There’s room for all of it.

zagrebian11• 3 years ago

I disagree. There’s no room for inaccessible websites. You don’t have to trade off anything. You can have both artistic expression and accessibility at the same time. For example, the website can make sure that it’s compatible with the browsers’ reader views. Then users can switch to reader view to read the text in simple black and white.

nathias• 3 years ago

very cool, I like it

the_common_man• 3 years ago

Glorious website, please don't change

ezconnect• 3 years ago

My online gripe is I can't use reader view.

jpswade• 3 years ago

Comes across as awfully defensive... Is this a satire website? I can't tell.

hgsgm5• 3 years ago

They are earnest trolls. They appear to be freelance contracting consultants, for people who need temporary work to solve a software problem. They don't care about being approachable or having a readable website. They do care about looking like smart edgy programmers, presumably because they only want to be hired by people who like smart edgy programmers. But I couldn't find how to hire them, so the whole thing may just be a goof for one person's personal hobby tech blog.

eitland• 3 years ago

Bookmarked for inspiration. This was seriously refreshing even if I hope most corporate websites won't copy it.

Not everything needs to be hard and not everything needs to be dull.

j-bos• 3 years ago

I really like the site and the qa thread. A criticism: The site/theme info footer is off center to the right on Samsung Galaxy browsers (ff, chrome, etc), hiding half the footer text.

rwky• 3 years ago

The 80s theme is my favourite, IMHO the easiest to read (and looks like my terminal)

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

It is the year 2031 and every website that didn’t adhere to modern design “sensibilities” has been hunted down and summarily executed…

…well, almost every. Exotic Silicon is still at large, last seen in the vicinity of the 46 block.

fatih-erikli• 3 years ago

I like how the bird levitates towards banner in homepage

FridgeSeal• 3 years ago

Honestly the design is a breath of fresh (tropical) air. And the scrolling is sooo smooth.

midenginedcoupe• 3 years ago

Reminds me of Lings Cars: https://www.lingscars.com/

Not a niche or hobbyist website, but a genuine car leasing company. Who's owner deliberately styled the site like this to act as a differentiator in a crowded market. It's certainly unique, I'll give them that.

ricardobayes• 3 years ago

Wow that average time to respond timer is nice, wish more sites did that.

kjs3• 3 years ago

I would lease a car from that man.

prmoustache3• 3 years ago

That website is just perfect.

xeetzer• 3 years ago

This one is actually great though.

awb• 3 years ago

You can trust me… I am Ling! Hope you enjoying your visit to LINGsCARS.com

Sometimes marketing is so bad it’s good

rchaud• 3 years ago

What's most shocking about this site is that they added a mobile layout in 2022. Before it was desktop-only.

asddubs2• 3 years ago

I think the one thing that strains the eyes a bit about the layout (besides people just using it as a metaphor for saying they don't like it) is that a lot of their themes use text shadow on all of the text, which makes it look slightly blurry, which in turn makes your eyes strain trying to focus on it.

davidmurdoch• 3 years ago

They address this and tell you your browser is broken. But also that if you are using a non-broken browser and it's still hard to read for you then that's on purpose, they want it to be hard to read for you, because their content is for healthy people only.

asddubs2• 3 years ago

they don't actually go into any detail how it's supposed to render, though. they refer to the standard but don't actually say what the browsers are supposedly doing wrong. It's not that the shadow being applied makes the text blurry somehow, it's that the shadow itself makes the text look like it's blurry, because it's very subtle. So, I don't buy it.

lukefore• 3 years ago

Hacker News should hire them for a refresh.

pflanze• 3 years ago

This site eats about 50% CPU on Firefox (on an older laptop) for every page that is open at the same time, and it continues to eat 50% after closing all pages. It doesn't use JavaScript and no visible CSS animations, so what is it? Apparently, the favicon! Which, as explained on the linked page, "is SVG, (with S.M.I.L. animation)". Since the favicon is still listed on the list of favourites on the browser start page, it continues to eat CPU... until clearing the browser history.

twawaaay• 3 years ago

"Ask Firefox developers"

prmoustache3• 3 years ago

- On edge on linux (yes) cpu process usage increase as well, but not as much.

- On chromium cpu usage do not evolve but it is not animating the favicon.

If you want to disable it on firefox and are using ublock origin, you can do so by going to the ublock origin dashboard --> My Filters and add the following line:

||research.exoticsilicon.com/images/icon.svg

whalesalad• 3 years ago

you just need a bigger cpu, so that the site uses less.

schnable• 3 years ago

Ask the Firefox team this question!!!!!!!

unosama4• 3 years ago

Another perk of staying on Firefox 83.0, the favicon doesn't even load!

hankmander• 3 years ago

Beautiful! Finally somebody taking the best of old and new and the result is something different!

catapart3• 3 years ago

Design proof that being "unique" doesn't mean "good".

I'm certainly glad they like what they've built. But it breaks a lot of design concepts that help with UX (some in micro ways that aren't really noticeable without the aggregate effect). The "max character width" is a really valuable thing for "readability". But why bother with learning design when you're using all of the TECHNICAL specs 'exactly as specified'. Why bother with design responsibility when you're already absolving yourself of technical responsibility ('it should not be our job to work around bad tech...').

Of course, the most galling thing is that they're not actually using the spec, as it is specified. Using `section` tags everywhere is inappropriate. They are meant to break up content in the `article` tag.

But, okay, whatever; you're going to cling to the spec but still ignore the parts of it you don't like. Fine. Like they said, it's not causing screen-reader issues, so who cares, right? Except that they ALSO don't use the `header` tag within those sections to denote what is clearly a header. Not a "heading" (h1-6, used for breaking up paragraphs in articles), maybe, since it's not in an article and that can cause funky screen-reader performance, but there's no reason to NOT use a `header` tag. This use case is literally what it was made for; giving a generic header that you can style and make accessible on your own. So why use a `section` tag erroneously, but then eschew using the `header` tag for the exact purpose you need? (why use it? screen readers/accessibility)

Nothing in this seems like "well-considered design". Rather it seems like "good enough, and how I like it." Which is a perfectly wonderful way to design and run a website! It's just kind of shitty to then go write an entire article telling anyone who misunderstands your uniqueness for a different flavor of uniqueness that you are actually doing everything exactly right and that anyone who dislikes your site should take their "problems" elsewhere. A fine enough attitude, if you're in to that kind of gatekeeping, but I've never found it compelling or endearing.

msoad• 3 years ago

Let me out-snob you and say those are called elements not tags.

catapart3• 3 years ago

I don't know what I said that was snobby? I replied to their article based on the points they made in said article.

That aside, yes, I was wrong to use it like "[...] in the `article` tag."; well spotted.

toomanyrichies4• 3 years ago

It's just kind of shitty to then go write an entire article telling anyone who misunderstands your uniqueness for a different flavor of uniqueness that you are actually doing everything exactly right and that anyone who dislikes your site should take their "problems" elsewhere.

"Am I so out of touch?

No. It's the children who are wrong."

-Seymour Skinner, "The Simpsons"

ryandrake2• 3 years ago

Call me old fashioned, but web sites that overdo the CSS and assert a strong design opinion just kind of annoy me now.

I wish we could go back to a WWW where the browser was the user agent and the user was the authority on text size, font face, colors and so on. Browsers have devolved from applications allowing users to browse hyperTEXT into these free-for-all canvases for web designers’ creativity.

Technically this should be solvable by using the browser’s “no styles” feature, but many web sites seem to be careless with the structure of their HTML such that “no styles” isn’t even readable.

I know this ship has sailed and my opinion is a fart in the wind at this point, but the web could have turned into a nice, fast, consistent way to publish structured and linked TEXT, but instead we got this “Remote Photoshop for Web Designers.”

manuelmoreale• 3 years ago

I'd argue there's a good middle ground to be found between the two extremes. We should style without overstyle.

prmoustache3• 3 years ago

I wish we could go back to a WWW where the browser was the user agent and the user was the authority on text size, font face, colors and so on.

This is still the case.

Your browser allows you to choose which font and size you want to use, as well as editing the css loaded on a tab and most browsers have extensions available to automatically load the css of your choice for a particular site.

The fact is that you choose not to use that freedom.

cush3• 3 years ago

Another wonderful internet fart in the wind is bidirectional links

https://maggieappleton.com/bidirectionals

grokkedit• 3 years ago

does anyone know what's the string above the "NO CARRIER" written at the bottom of the page?

koromak• 3 years ago

Wondering that too. Its not an obvious encoding to my eyes.

JohnFen11• 3 years ago

You're too young to understand. :)

mikecoles• 3 years ago

Mom picking up the phone and dialing Aunt Madge?

pwg• 3 years ago

Kind of looks like an attempt at simulating the "modem dropped because someone picked up an extension phone while modem was connected" result. There was often a burst of random characters like that when the link went down due to "external causes".

gbromios• 3 years ago

I deeply, un-ironically respect their ethos and their hideous, distracting color scheme

rsync• 3 years ago

Agreed.

I have no idea who "exoticsilicon" are or if they read HN but if they do, free-for-life rsync.net accounts for any of them that care to contact us.

I am already making good use of this particular piece of content:

https://research.exoticsilicon.com/articles/lte_ethernet_bri...

layer8• 3 years ago

The one thing I would change, which only the 1980s theme fixes, at the cost of monospace text, is to make the background non-scrolling (or, rather, non-fixed).

frankfrankfrank• 3 years ago

Can’t really argue with most of their logic. The site is fast and responsive. I did get a sense that most if the criticism is really based on anxiety about the authors own position, i.e., a buzzword internet startup type is of course going to feel panic if it is highlighted that their fancy designs and site that is heavily reliant on violating people’s privacy and security bogs down the site and the whole internet with it. It’s typical crabs in a barrel nitpicking.

And yes, I realize I just upset many sensibilities here.

nkrisc4• 3 years ago

Couldn't actually read for very long. The content scrolling over the static background image gave me motion sickness.

The 1980s theme was the only one I could stand, and the 1990s theme appears to be the same as the Tropical Days theme. All the ones with the background are essentially unusable for me.

It's their site, they can do whatever they want, but it's a bit silly to act like there's something wrong with anyone who has a problem with it. For example, in the default theme the yellow text (#FFFF00) with the pink highlight (#FF00FF) fails WCAG contrast requirements across the board.

Maybe the really don't care whether everyone has an easy time reading their site or not, and that's their choice, but I find the snark about it off-putting. It's not difficult to design a site that's easy for everyone to read.

But anyway, most of the material published on our research website is also available in gemtext format via our gemini server.

Might be the only way I'd read this site.

hairofadog• 3 years ago

I find the snark about it off-putting

Same. I think this is one of those things where they were having some fun, and then some people on the Internet overreacted with great hyperbole, and so they're issuing this response to those people, but I'm sitting here reading it and it feels aggressive, and I think, "Wait, what did I do? I'm just sitting here not bothering anybody", and it begins to feel like a low-level conflict. I think a lot of internet discourse is like that, unfortunately.

jallen_dot_dev• 3 years ago

Probably trying to copy the "cool"/snarky PR approach of dbrand[1] or Ryanair[2].

[1] https://twitter.com/dbrand/status/1626716812128952320

[2] https://twitter.com/Ryanair/status/1569268623235231748

catapart3• 3 years ago

Aye. Big "we have a developer that knows CSS" vibes, rather than "we have a designer" energy. Feels like someone should have told them the pitfalls of chasing a design that was hand-crafted for a specific format (print media; magazines, specifically), or at least why the choices that were made for that medium were made, and why they may cause issues in this medium. For that kind of stuff, though, you need someone who has a deep knowledge of design, rather than just a high skill at implementing designs.

Of course, with such an obviously high skill at design implementation, they did plenty enough to be perfectly fine for most use-cases, so it's hard to be too hard on them about any of their choices. Everything works just fine. And to ignore complaints that ignore your design choices is a fine disposition, as well! No reason to bother with people who aren't interested in your vision and don't contribute.

But to snark about the complaints, as if there's nothing you could do better? Smacks of an aloofness that is an off-putting characteristic for an organizations purporting to do research.

photochemsyn• 3 years ago

On Firefox, you can just prepend "about:reader?url=" to any web page and you get the plain-text reader view. There's apparently a config setting in the userChrome.css file to make reader available like this on all sites.

Poppys3• 3 years ago

In Edge you can highlight text and click read in Immersive Reader or prefix the url with read://

Some sites have it in the address bar, but I've never found any documentation from MS that makes it clear how to ensure that it is always there.

nkrisc4• 3 years ago

That's a good point, and a good tip for when Firefox doesn't prompt it automatically. I'd forgotten entirely about reader mode on Desktop, I do use it all the time on mobile though.

Poppys3• 3 years ago

Playing Devil's advocate, if the themes are inaccessible, the user can always pick another one. Monochrome might provide the contrast ratio you want.

JohnFen11• 3 years ago

But why would they? It's much easier just to move on to another site.

nkrisc4• 3 years ago

My recommendation is always accessible by default. If the default theme is not accessible, it may be difficult for the user to switch to one that is.

It's so easy to make a site that is accessible - a blank HTML document with no CSS essentially is. It takes work to make a site that isn't.

lenkite• 3 years ago

Lol, this is the first website in a long while that made me feel sick after scrolling for a while. I need to show this to the folks in office and see who pukes or wipes their head.

Looks like we need to "seek professional medical advice"

jamesandthewolf• 3 years ago

Ha I actually kind of like this design its a bit different but works, I think the only thing that I might say is the reading length is a bit long maybe limiting to a set width in terms of length as its difficult on large screens to read across the full page but other then this not bad.

Have you tried that thing Bionic Reading it could be interesting for people to just digest the text further and quicker if that is the end goal but anyway its interesting I really do like it to be honest

unosama4• 3 years ago

Irony has gone too far when you're writing an article explaining how your ironically bad and retro web design is good, actually.

computerfriend• 3 years ago

Not far enough.

marcosdumay2• 3 years ago

I'm not sure. It's only a problem if they expect anybody to actually read it.

cush3• 3 years ago

Reminds me of Dinos Tomato Pie: https://www.dinostomatopie.com/

efields• 3 years ago

This is good website.

MavisBacon3• 3 years ago

Per original link

>Arghhhh! Your pages give me a headache, and/or eyestrain.
Stop using the site immediately and consult a qualified ophthalmologist. Seriously, no static display on a modern and correctly adjusted VDU such as a computer monitor or phone screen should ever be inducing headaches or eyestrain in a healthy individual when properly used for reasonable time periods, and with sufficient breaks. If it is, you may have an underlying health condition which has otherwise gone un-noticed.

this statement basically implies that you have no intention of creating a website that is accessible to all users, and to all of those users with cognitive, vision, or neurological issues: "tough luck, go see a doctor!". Though I understand the goal here in terms of style and this page is indeed WCAG friendly enough in terms of some of the most obvious success criteria- this website is an objective nightmare for those with a variety of cognitive disabilities.

falcolas5• 3 years ago

I have to admit, there's a lot of crap on this page. But...

They do provide reasonable contrasts for all text on the page.

The text is a reasonable size.

Which is honestly better than most websites, especially technology sites.

That said, it would be nice if they supported readers though, or directly linked to their "gem text" (pure ascii) site. Putting blame on the browsers for the site's design choices is lazy.

jrm42• 3 years ago

I find it wildly ridiculous that we've more or less abandoned the practically simple idea of "the web is text, so just let people render the text how they want in their browsers."

Yet another reminder of the overblown nature of UX/UI in general. Given the current push for accessibility, seems like "make the text accessible" should be the goal above all else.

tedunangst• 3 years ago

But the text is all there? Is there some sort of DRM embedded in the html that prevents you from rendering it how you'd like?

renewiltord3• 3 years ago

You can use a userstyle on the webpage. It works. It's quite straightforward actually.

basch• 3 years ago

Time to hop over to Gemini.

hoosieree• 3 years ago

The way a lot of people experience "the web" is not primarily text, but instead compressed screenshots of text. And screenshots of screenshots, ad infinitum.

ogurechny2• 3 years ago

Actually, a site that is structured well enough to be usable in text mode browsers is already more accessible to all users than most of the “beautifully” designed examples.

There's a different kind of incapacity involved: incapacity to control your device and software to have them suit your needs. The reply assumes that user has no other option except to drool and stare at what website author chose.

MavisBacon3• 3 years ago

this generally isn't how designing with cognitive or neurological disabilities in mind works, we don't want the user to have to make adjustments in order to use a website as this only creates more friction. Not to mention the fact that we don't assume that the user is knowledgeable on how to make those adjustments, especially with the senior population which is a large segment of the cognitively impacted population who are using the internet.

unlike with the blind or low vision population, those with cognitive and neuro issues often aren't aware of assistive tech, often aren't familiar with the accessibility settings on their devices, and sometimes aren't even aware of the disability they are dealing with and are undiagnosed.

mouzogu• 3 years ago

same thing for all these apps/websites with dark mode only.

spotify, steam, epic and many more.

big diff between profit/trend driven design and philosophical/practical design.

rpgbr• 3 years ago

Nice explaining, yet terrible web design.

Daub• 3 years ago

Has anyone here seen the original ooer subreddit?

https://old.reddit.com/r/Ooer/ best viewed on desktop

Enjoy it's luscious overdrive.

QuadrupleA• 3 years ago

I think it's cool! I applaud them trying something different. There's too much groupthink and too little creativity / humanity in modern design - 90s mainstream UIs, for all their faults, at least had a little fun and soul.

doublerabbit• 3 years ago

Reminds me of Every Bootstrap Website Ever, https://www.dagusa.com/

JohnFen11• 3 years ago

Wow, the people running that website are pissed.

rektide3• 3 years ago

The whole website is playful as fuck.

This 100% felt like more playful teasing. At the expense of those who refuse to have a good time, who can't roll with it, who let themselves be tattered by tiny things.

It just going on and on and on just keeps highlighting how in depth & considerate & thoughtful they really are & keeps bringing out the joke more, about how hilarious & fun it is & how great it is to have such an amusing conversation piece.

This page is their moment of glory, a secret shrine to how awesome they are. The hurf-burf "this isn't 90's web design!" being way over precise & technical about the matter was a hilarious example of them just being here to have fun & be smart about shit.

JohnFen11• 3 years ago

I guess that's the problem with extreme snark. It's very culturally dependent and doesn't always translate well when taken out of the social setting that it grew in.

That page doesn't read to me as playful or fun, it reads to me as angry and bitter. Although I understand (now) that's not what they were going for, I can't make my brain read it any other way.

captainpiggies• 3 years ago

Ok, we get it, your website's design is basically bad on purpose, and it probably generates a lot of free pr exactly because it is bad and because it's novel. However, I can assure you that my eyes are perfectly fine, but your website still makes me nauseous.

renewiltord3• 3 years ago

Haha, this is great. Present as you will. Don't enslave yourselves to the refinement culture horde. It's okay.

than3• 3 years ago

If the site text is not easily readable by anyone, you are doing something wrong.

This is like saying, we want to make our site progressive, so we'll embed a bunch of things in a magic eye, and the people reading can do free-viewing for that steroscopic effect.

Nevermind the simple fact that roughly 10% of the global population is color blind and as a result will biologically never be able to see it if the colors are wrong.

iudqnolq2• 3 years ago

It's disgusting for them to say their site should be fine for a healthy individual and that's enough. Not everyone is healthy! And if you're unhealthy and visit a doctor you often won't be instantly cured.

Since admitting that you didn't realise the theme selector was there would make you look silly in front of people you don't even know

The theme selector is a link in the footer. It's probably the most subtle thing on the entire page. And it's not like they're using the rest of their real estate efficiently. I think it's fair to infer they prefer people don't realize they can change the theme until they've been annoyed.

3np• 3 years ago

From the top of the front page, the first section leads to half a screenful informing you to choose a theme. It's the first and most prominent showed to new visitors, promoted on top of the front page.

iudqnolq2• 3 years ago

if I control-f for "theme" the first hit is four screenfulls down (phone) and it's a reference in the middle of a long block of text that implies they have themes.

The first prominent mention of themes is a heading six screenfulls down that mocks you for not changing it. It doesn't tell you how to change it.

This site is an explosion of emphasis. They can use massive size and gradients and flashy colors to emphasize their mockery of me. If they choose not to use the same for their theme switcher link I think it's fair to infer they don't want to emphasize it.

ripley12• 3 years ago

Good for them. It’s a fun website design and a breath of fresh air.

People who complain about offbeat-but-still-readable web design are killjoys who indirectly contribute to the sterility of the modern internet.

rolph• 3 years ago

in many cases, i turn off the page style. this is one of them.

if i really feel i need the info and de-styling wont work, then i read the source.

if to no avail, i go elsewhere.

JohnFen11• 3 years ago

i read the source.

You mean I'm not the only one who does this?? I think I end up doing that on about 25% of the websites I hit.

phforms• 3 years ago

The only thing that really annoys me about this website is the fixed vibrant background images that interfere with the text. Otherwise, I find it quite refreshing to see something different. I have seen much worse typography on “professional looking” websites tbh.

However, it is not the most accessible of websites and I certainly wouldn’t want to have e.g. Wikipedia be designed like this (oof), but I don’t mind the occassional quirky rebellious web design adventure.

dagorenouf• 3 years ago

The contrarian approach generates free marketing and serves as a filter to pain-in-the-ass clients who will nitpick about everything. Well played.

punyearthling• 3 years ago

I say this as an accessibility specialist - I think this site is fine. The authors have made a site that brings them joy and if they see customers dropping off and are fine with it, that’s OK.

For folks complaining of headaches or eye strain, browsers come equipped with forced-colors mode that enable you to choose your preferred color scheme.

Replying to comments about our web page design

Related Stories