Yeah, it messes up a few other pages as well. To be fixed.
I think the site needs a dark mode. More and more people are favoring it. I use my monitor in a nearly yellow tone, redshift -O 2800k so I like the white background just fine. I can’t get behind the gray background though. I mean, how many sites does that? I find it harder to read.
The font I used could be one size larger, I did made an alternate screenshot to compare. Yet research suggests the current font size, not the one from my script, is ideal. I still favor higher density, as I can analyze the content faster.
Regarding skimming, I read titles by rows, not lines. I think we’ve been conditioned for this. Just look at Reddit or Medium. I find it easy to read a few words and skip to the next row. The title is too important to be trimmed away, I would sooner hide the author, date an comments count. I think it’s very hard to find a site with this few characters in a title.
I haven’t used the site enough to give a proper opinion on the icons. I think they either should be used more or hidden altogether. But I mix my feelings regarding topics, something I didn’t touch yet. They will either be on the left of the title, on the end of the line, or below the titles, in a smaller font. I can’t tell you how much I want to see 50 titles at a time and instantly know where they fit. Blue tagged AI, green tagged Animal Wellfare, etc.
I plan on enhancing my script as I spend more time here. It might take a while. I mostly wanted to take a feel if my experiences are in line with others. I’m happy to keep my preferences as a userscript and give the users another choice.
I think the site needs a dark mode. More and more people are favoring it.
The site already has one! Or more precisely LessWrong has one, and it probably wouldn’t be too hard to adapt it to the EA Forum (which shares a codebase).
The font I used could be one size larger, I did made an alternate screenshot to compare. Yet research suggests the current font size, not the one from my script, is ideal. I still favor higher density, as I can analyze the content faster.
I am generally skeptical of research in this space, but yeah, the current font size is what seems to work pretty well in user tests I’ve done. I do also think sometimes it makes sense to have more density and smaller font sizes (and like, comment text is already almost that small)
I can’t get behind the gray background though. I mean, how many sites does that? I find it harder to read.
I mean, how about Reddit?
Or how about Youtube (the background of the videos):
Or how about Facebook:
The pattern of “grey background with white boxes in front, occasional header or nav element on the grey background” is as far as I can tell the standard pattern to reduce eye fatigue while also ensuring high text contrast. I actually can’t think of a content heavy site that doesn’t do this.
I’m confused why the all white background is better, grey is easier on the eyes and the non-white color gives a natural framing to the other content. Both points seem pretty normal in design.
I disagree that those other sites are superior. Also a major issue is that they use visual/video content (reddit and FB) and have different modes of use/seeking attention. They are designed around a scrolling feed, producing a constant stream of content, showing 1-3 items at a time.
Setting the above aside, I’m uncertain why your changes reflect ideas from them. For example, your changes to text, make posts much more compact than Reddit or SO.
“Grey is easier” I don’t think it is. Would you disagree that most publications use a white background? Could you provide at least some examples of ones that doesn’t?
“I disagree that those other sites are superior.” We would have to define superior. For me, the best (most well paid) minds in UX + the most number of users are objective measures. That doesn’t mean we have to copy them, but it beckons to the familiarity factor.
I agree that they have a constant stream of content and this matters on design. What use is to have 50 compacted posts that I can scan in 1 second, if we have 30 posts a week? It is unfortunate that we don’t have a higher traffic. I believe in reducing barriers of entry to help on this, and making a familiar site is but a very small of those.
To your third point, open a screenshot of my version, the current design here and any of them. See you can spot the ideas I try to incorporate. I don’t know your background, but I can give you a a technical response. Fonts, spacing, that kind of thing. I basically copied the typography from them, while keeping the site identity and adding a few of my preferences.
Please note I did that in about 4 hours of work. The gross of it was very fast, some details took very long. 1 hour I spent fighting the pop ups before deciding to disable them
“Grey is easier” I don’t think it is. Would you disagree that most publications use a white background? Could you provide at least some examples of ones that doesn’t?
I checked two sites that you listed, FB and StackExchange, and they literally use a grey/off white background. Started with these two and I stopped after checking these two, I suspect I’ll find more.
Before I thought this opinion about the use of grey (and avoidance of high contrast) was normal/standard before. Now I’m even more sure, and not knowing/ opposing about it seems sort of strange to me.
“I disagree that those other sites are superior.” We would have to define superior. For me, the best (most well paid) minds in UX + the most number of users are objective measures. That doesn’t mean we have to copy them, but it beckons to the familiarity factor.
There’s a lot going on here, but IMO neither of those things make this view very promising. This is because they are designed for MAU/growth hacking and the audience is different (and I don’t think this is some elite or niche thing). Also, since the business is multiple billions are year, you naturally get top talent.
As an analogy, tabloids are popular and well designed for their audience, but that doesn’t make them dominant design choices. I do agree that the design on average is good and things work for those sites.
Also, I suspect some design choices from those sites have dependencies—I think having an infinite scroll or video or picture focus would affect other design choices, such as size/position/font of text, so copying those design choices to a forum might not be appropriate without more sophistication.
I don’t want to be disagreeable or press too much here on you here. Honestly I want to learn about design and different perspectives, but I don’t think I am?
Some of the other things you said suggested you have strong views that seemed more personal and also that you use some unusual color filter? This makes me speculate that you are applying a personal perspective disproportionately and ignoring “the customer”, but maybe this is unfair.
You’re talking about the framing. Sorry, I didn’t realize. It’s not among my concerns to the site. Yes, It’s a preference. There are a few main trends regarding framing, I’m on the one against it. Gray on gray refers to the comments section, and any other place where there is a gray background and a “gray” font. It is not an unusual choice, I just don’t find it the best. As an argument, you read articles in a white background, why comments should have gray, aside from structural purposes?
Regarding audience, I kind of disagree. Yes, the audience here is not the same of that of Reddit. And I think this should change. Still I’d like to see a site like this. It literally created its own engine! Which is awesome by the way. I love VulcanJs. Here is an example of what I would like to see on hitting the main page: https://forum.vuejs.org/.
Just for reference, I have 20 years as a developer, and I have been part in maybe hundreds of design discussions, even though I’m a front/back end developer. So, no expert but I’m somewhat on the loop. The changes I propose are a mix of personal choices and experience/research based opinions.
Also, any discussion of familiarity starts with mobile, which I don’t use. My focus is mainly on the 1080p 24inch desktop experience.
Yeah, it messes up a few other pages as well. To be fixed.
I think the site needs a dark mode. More and more people are favoring it. I use my monitor in a nearly yellow tone,
redshift -O 2800k
so I like the white background just fine. I can’t get behind the gray background though. I mean, how many sites does that? I find it harder to read.The font I used could be one size larger, I did made an alternate screenshot to compare. Yet research suggests the current font size, not the one from my script, is ideal. I still favor higher density, as I can analyze the content faster.
Regarding skimming, I read titles by rows, not lines. I think we’ve been conditioned for this. Just look at Reddit or Medium. I find it easy to read a few words and skip to the next row. The title is too important to be trimmed away, I would sooner hide the author, date an comments count. I think it’s very hard to find a site with this few characters in a title.
I haven’t used the site enough to give a proper opinion on the icons. I think they either should be used more or hidden altogether. But I mix my feelings regarding topics, something I didn’t touch yet. They will either be on the left of the title, on the end of the line, or below the titles, in a smaller font. I can’t tell you how much I want to see 50 titles at a time and instantly know where they fit. Blue tagged AI, green tagged Animal Wellfare, etc.
I plan on enhancing my script as I spend more time here. It might take a while. I mostly wanted to take a feel if my experiences are in line with others. I’m happy to keep my preferences as a userscript and give the users another choice.
The site already has one! Or more precisely LessWrong has one, and it probably wouldn’t be too hard to adapt it to the EA Forum (which shares a codebase).
I am generally skeptical of research in this space, but yeah, the current font size is what seems to work pretty well in user tests I’ve done. I do also think sometimes it makes sense to have more density and smaller font sizes (and like, comment text is already almost that small)
I mean, how about Reddit?
Or how about Youtube (the background of the videos):
Or how about Facebook:
The pattern of “grey background with white boxes in front, occasional header or nav element on the grey background” is as far as I can tell the standard pattern to reduce eye fatigue while also ensuring high text contrast. I actually can’t think of a content heavy site that doesn’t do this.
I’m confused why the all white background is better, grey is easier on the eyes and the non-white color gives a natural framing to the other content. Both points seem pretty normal in design.
I disagree that those other sites are superior. Also a major issue is that they use visual/video content (reddit and FB) and have different modes of use/seeking attention. They are designed around a scrolling feed, producing a constant stream of content, showing 1-3 items at a time.
Setting the above aside, I’m uncertain why your changes reflect ideas from them. For example, your changes to text, make posts much more compact than Reddit or SO.
“Grey is easier” I don’t think it is. Would you disagree that most publications use a white background? Could you provide at least some examples of ones that doesn’t?
“I disagree that those other sites are superior.” We would have to define superior. For me, the best (most well paid) minds in UX + the most number of users are objective measures. That doesn’t mean we have to copy them, but it beckons to the familiarity factor.
I agree that they have a constant stream of content and this matters on design. What use is to have 50 compacted posts that I can scan in 1 second, if we have 30 posts a week? It is unfortunate that we don’t have a higher traffic. I believe in reducing barriers of entry to help on this, and making a familiar site is but a very small of those.
To your third point, open a screenshot of my version, the current design here and any of them. See you can spot the ideas I try to incorporate. I don’t know your background, but I can give you a a technical response. Fonts, spacing, that kind of thing. I basically copied the typography from them, while keeping the site identity and adding a few of my preferences.
Please note I did that in about 4 hours of work. The gross of it was very fast, some details took very long. 1 hour I spent fighting the pop ups before deciding to disable them
I checked two sites that you listed, FB and StackExchange, and they literally use a grey/off white background. Started with these two and I stopped after checking these two, I suspect I’ll find more.
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/101876/why-not-use-darker-backgrounds-instead-of-white
The stackexchange site literally answered this very question and one answer pointed out that the very site is off-white (although less than grey or the EA forum). The top answer here supports grey backgrounds: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/23965/is-there-a-problem-with-using-black-text-on-white-backgrounds?rq=1.
Before I thought this opinion about the use of grey (and avoidance of high contrast) was normal/standard before. Now I’m even more sure, and not knowing/ opposing about it seems sort of strange to me.
There’s a lot going on here, but IMO neither of those things make this view very promising. This is because they are designed for MAU/growth hacking and the audience is different (and I don’t think this is some elite or niche thing). Also, since the business is multiple billions are year, you naturally get top talent.
As an analogy, tabloids are popular and well designed for their audience, but that doesn’t make them dominant design choices. I do agree that the design on average is good and things work for those sites.
Also, I suspect some design choices from those sites have dependencies—I think having an infinite scroll or video or picture focus would affect other design choices, such as size/position/font of text, so copying those design choices to a forum might not be appropriate without more sophistication.
I don’t want to be disagreeable or press too much here on you here. Honestly I want to learn about design and different perspectives, but I don’t think I am?
Some of the other things you said suggested you have strong views that seemed more personal and also that you use some unusual color filter? This makes me speculate that you are applying a personal perspective disproportionately and ignoring “the customer”, but maybe this is unfair.
??? Yeah, Reddit’s design literally uses a grey background. It’s darker than the EA forum.
You’re talking about the framing. Sorry, I didn’t realize. It’s not among my concerns to the site. Yes, It’s a preference. There are a few main trends regarding framing, I’m on the one against it. Gray on gray refers to the comments section, and any other place where there is a gray background and a “gray” font. It is not an unusual choice, I just don’t find it the best. As an argument, you read articles in a white background, why comments should have gray, aside from structural purposes?
Regarding audience, I kind of disagree. Yes, the audience here is not the same of that of Reddit. And I think this should change. Still I’d like to see a site like this. It literally created its own engine! Which is awesome by the way. I love VulcanJs. Here is an example of what I would like to see on hitting the main page: https://forum.vuejs.org/.
Just for reference, I have 20 years as a developer, and I have been part in maybe hundreds of design discussions, even though I’m a front/back end developer. So, no expert but I’m somewhat on the loop. The changes I propose are a mix of personal choices and experience/research based opinions.
Also, any discussion of familiarity starts with mobile, which I don’t use. My focus is mainly on the 1080p 24inch desktop experience.