Do you remember the time when it used to be so simple to just open a new browser window, type a website address into the search bar, and then wait a bit while the site loaded? You could do everything you needed with that internet resource without a fuss. But things have changed now. Hopefully, your device has a good, or even great, internet connection, so the required website loads quickly enough. However, even after that, you often still have some work to do:
- You read some strange text and then decide whether to allow the website to use all your cookies 🍪 or maybe try to configure which cookies you want them to set. There's no evidence that the chosen option will really lead to anything, because most of the time, it doesn't. It's just some odd third-party script that was added to this specific website to be "compliant" with GDPR, all because some person from marketing told a developer that it's crucial for the website;
- You try to close this annoying popup window that covers the entire website, not letting you see what's on the site itself. Maybe it's just a never-ending promotion for some "new" products or subscriptions. Perhaps it's about the idea that it's "better" to use a different browser or even an entirely different device to view the site. And while you're trying to find a way to close this popup window – because the X icon is hidden quite well – you can't even scroll, as if blocking the user's scrolling ability is a brilliant idea;
- Would you like to enable push notifications for this website? Honestly, we're not quite sure what we'll be sending you, but just in case, you know. Don't like it? Just close this extra window, it's not a big deal;
- Now, if you've managed to win the battle against popups, it's finally time to see the actual website. But don't get your hopes up too high. As soon as you scroll a few hundred pixels – a new modal window pops up. Why not, right? Someone decided that you've had enough of the real content, and now it's time to show you the latest promotion or just ask you to subscribe to some completely irrelevant newsletter;
- You might want to use the footer navigation for some reason, but at this point, it's not possible because the cookie banner is still there, covering all the important information like navigation links and company details;
- And now, just when you've sorted out all these banners and popups and are ready to engage with the website – bam! The LIVE CHAT suddenly takes over your entire screen. Hello there! What can I assist you with?
- Oh, and let's not forget that EVERY POSSIBLE tracker was loaded via Google Tag Manager. Because someone apparently thought we absolutely needed all this analytics, tracking data, and even live screen capturing of users browsing the website;
- Finally, you can enjoy THE WEBSITE. You've given up all your cookies, sacrificed your privacy, and invested your time and effort – you've earned it!
So, who's responsible for all of this? Is it the person who created the task in some project management tool like Jira, Trello, or Asana? Or maybe it's the one who implemented it? In my humble opinion: it's both. I strongly believe that we, as developers, bear responsibility not just for writing lines of code, but for creating THE PRODUCT. We're answerable for the user experiences. We control the amount of data users need to download to use our website or app. We're accountable for the data collected by first or third-party scripts. Don't let managers or product owners blindly dictate what the product should be. If you're there, if you're part of the team, then take the initiative. This is also your area of expertise. Don't hesitate to ask questions like:
- "Why do we need all these trackers?";
- "Is it appropriate to interfere with how our visitors use our website?";
- "Do we really need this massive image slider on the first page?";
- "How can we enhance the website experience across a wide range of devices?";
- "Why does our design neglect the existence of color-blind individuals?";
- And so on...
Don't just rely on the expertise or experience of someone who gave you instructions. Sometimes they're just blindly following bad examples: "If most websites have this popup, we should have it too!". Show them the other way, find the good examples, provide evidence. We should stand up for our customers, visitors, and users. If not us, then who? So, let's make web great again!
Top comments (54)
Different sources give different ranges of character widths (anywhere from 50ish to 80ish), but it's widely accepted and backed up by research that text is less readable if it's too many characters wide.
'Serial communications provide an easy and flexible way for your Arduino board'.lengthis already at 77, which is the upper end of that range.What is the best number of paragraph width for readability? - User Experience Stack Exchange
This design calls focus to the content in blue and leaves the content below at a width that would be easier to process. Too wide and it becomes jarring with the image on right and text on left. It could've had a different design made for bigger screens, but they're more focused on smaller screens lately as much of the market has gone mobile.
Coming back to this 2-week-old thread and it looks like the original commenter deleted their posts (which were arguing that text should fill up the available horizontal space, not leave a ton of space at the margins). Here's a counterexample I just came across — postgresql's official docs. IMO the small font size combined with unlimited text width feels like it was designed for "mobile-only" rather than "mobile-first", and the ultra-wide text display on large screens makes it borderline unreadable to me:
In contrast, here's the same page with some custom user-styles added in Stylebot:
Much better!
I fully share your perspective on this matter. These documentation pages appear quite awkward on wide monitors. However, if I recall correctly, the initial post predominantly focused on the excessive blank spaces between vertical blocks and the main content being pushed down due to promotional blocks and other unnecessary elements cluttering the top part of the page. Anyway, thanks for your example and input to this discussion 👍
Interesting. I wonder why printed books have worked for 100s of years then? 😁
Well, most printed books are a lot narrower than even a small monitor or laptop screen.
Example: photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7506/6...
'the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and trans-'.length == 61Thanks, @raddevus, especially for your illustration. Designers are guilty too 🙃. They shouldn't just follow some bad examples, but rather think about HOW the visitor will be using this particular website or application. Is it convenient or just "beautiful enough" for the client to pay for the work done with this design?
While I agree with a lot of what you've said in principle, I don't personally feel the O'Reilly site is too bad. White space is an important tool for framing content and making it easier to read; while I do dislike sites that are all white space and no content, I find them much easier on the eyes than the opposite of having everything crammed together because someone insisted the whole page had to be visible "above the fold".
That empty space is white space and is not a new concept or wasted space. It makes it easier to absorb the content and decreases destraction. On a site for books this makes sense to use it.
Why are you assuming I don't use this site? I do use it. This design would have gone through user testing as well, and it uses methodologies that came about because of previous testing. Other reading focused sites used those same methodologies.
That car design would not have been made for the same reason a website with less space and more crowded test wasn't made: bad user experience. Small windows are hard to see out of. Lower roof makes for lack of head room. No handles means you can't open the door. Wheelbase is too big so unconventional tires would have to be used, making it more expensive.
I was being serious... They talk about it and showed the beta site to people before implementing for this very reason...
oreilly.com/content/oreilly-redesi...
I wouldn't point out a view on mobile if the view is desktop. That isn't how it works. They're different views completely requiring different needs.
The thing about UX is your experience isn't everyone's experience. This is why they had the beta site and used feedback in the first place. I personally have no issues with scrolling, and rely heavily on search as there is so much content to search through. I would've liked if they had given the user a way to change from list to grid view though, personally. They could also bump the spacing down to fit in a few more on desktop as well without sacrificing readability.
I can tell from their search options that their focus was on sorting options rather than trying to fit the maximum amount. That and the ability to show the user more info on the books without leaving the page. The new site has the search page act more as a hub, and allows the user to do pretty much anything they can do aside from reading or viewing the content right from that page, while the old one you had to go to the item to find out anything about it.
Old site for reference for anyone who cares:
I agree with the overall assessment, but want to offer another reason why the web is so broken. We let corporations propose and implement web standards. It's a losing proposition expecting corporations to work together, agree on web standards. Cooperation isn't often a built-in characteristic of Capitalism and it shows. Apple refuses to implement customized built-in elements in WebKit, a specification that is found in every other browser engine. Apple refused to support PWA for several years. Google outright refuses to implement JPEGXL, while Apple brags about implementing it. Mozilla was once the hope for an open-source, free alternative from a non-profit, but they seem to be crumbling, often missing specifications.
Web developers can't build on a platform that is fragmented and broken to begin with, so it's not all our fault. Putting our trust in corporations to shepherd web specifications was probably a bad idea.
Yes, but corporations hold the purse. Hard for devs to "just say no". We're not all free wheeling bohemians able to decide how the assets are to be produced. This is primarily the responsibility and "blame" of those signing the paychecks.
In my opinion the problem is consumer who agree to use those websites. If some company spam with ads (more money) and still have users, they will do this until it make business. 💰💵💸
As consumer we have power to vote with our choice 💪
Nevertheless it’s really interesting topic, sometimes I think how would like internet if all pages would be paid without ads?
An intriguing perspective. In my opinion, you're absolutely right. When a company bombards me with their newsletters or ads, I simply strive to steer clear of both the content and their services, no matter what. Perhaps if everyone took a similar approach, we would then have a much better experience 😉
But as consumers, what choices do we have when we want to participate in the world as it is, communicate with friends and support family members using online shops and information websites for certain reasons. I think as web developers, we have some power as B2B customers and that's possibly the reason that some minimalist websites are quite successful and popular in our community like MDN, StackOverflow, CSS-tricks that refuse to follow contemporary anti-patterns blindly.
There's no debating the web is broken, but developers aren't typically "letting this happen".
Most of the time, it's mandated by management, and despite our best efforts to talk them out of it, it's not usually a battle we can win.
Just as we can't stop management from dumping 100s of KB of ads and tracking scripts on every visitor.
As for consent banners, this is mandated by GDPR in the EU - not even management gets a say in that. And of course the experience is totally inconsistent between every website out there. Half them aren't even legal - some of them by accident, others deliberately to "appear" legal.
The EU royally screwed the pooch on this one. Instead of a one-time solution enforced on 4 browser vendors, they decided to enforce this on every individual website owner out there. There's no taking it back now either, as this has created a billion-dollar industry of consent solutions.
So I completely agree - the web is royally messed up, and you didn't even mention the fact that half the web is now behind paywalls, man, don't get me started! 😐
But I'm not sure most of it is because of developers. We don't want a web like this - nobody does. If we had any say in it, of course we wouldn't want it to be like this, anymore than the next person. If we had the power to change it... 😔
It's hard but not impossible to create websites that don't need annoying consent banners. As I understand, there are some "technically necessary" cookies and stats allowed by GDPR without explicit consent, and we could defer consent banners for other stuff until it first appears. Like a blog with YouTube or Instagram content that does not appear on every single page wouldn't need to ask for Insta consent on a page without any of their content.
Sometimes we can convince customers, designers and project managers but ever so often when we start technical implementation, all design decisions have already been discussed and decided, especially in large projects and companies.
I think an issue that was overlooked from the web's start was the cost of creating content (it takes time and some money to create good content) and the ability to generate massive wealth. That leads to competition, which leads to an experience that feels more like walking in downtown of a big city than a stroll in the park.
If everyone refused to interact with these websites, would it change? Would websites see their traffic dip and offer better alternatives, like say how slow page loads leads to people leaving the site?
For the record, I have never once needed a website to send me browser notifications lol I don't know how that became a thing 😅
It can be useful for web apps providing real-time functionality like IM, webmail, social media, any process that takes a few minutes without user action to complete, etc. The thing that pisses me off is that as soon as this useful feature became widely available on the web platform, a huge swathe of websites that have absolutely no business sending notifications (news sites, blogs, e-commerce, company websites, etc.) decided they had to jump on the bandwagon.
Ironically, it seems some of the most obnoxious sites are those I've relied on for technical references for years.
What braniac thought it would be a great idea to fill development reference sites with popups and garbage that hides the information you came to ingest?
If even these sites are impervious to the trashing of the internet, then yes, maybe it is our fault.
👍 Such an engaging perspective on the current state of the web! Your insights truly open up the conversation about user experience and the role of developers. This article got me thinking, and I'm excited to explore more enlightening reads.
If you're hungry for more technical content, check out my Medium profile here. Let's keep the learning journey going! 🌟📚
Thanks, Jai. Will definitely check it out!
That is soooo right!
You may be too young but that reminds me the messages on websites in the early times: This website is best viewed with Netscape in 800x600
This resolution was the best 😉. Regrettably, I don't recall ever using Netscape Navigator for work or browsing (when I began my web development career, it had already faded into obscurity), but I do remember testing my websites on Internet Explorer 5.
You're absolutely right. Today I was trying to see some sneakers and guess what? I failed miserable. There was a lot of banners and ad's and this page took too long to show me some sneakers. So I just gave up. Another thing was annoying me, it was the filter that didn't work well.
Let's hope that every visitor has the latest iPhone Pro and enjoys the benefits of 5G speed 😉
Most of the Web is not like this. My Web is completely different. You talk about some of the annoying sites. So no, the Web has never been better than it is now. Browser have never been better than now.
Which specific browser are you referring to? The one that spies on you, the one that's gradually becoming obsolete or the one that a little bit slow on implementing latest features and specifications?
I'm kidding. The web is definitely different. JS is amazing, CSS is also AWESOME nowadays (I think it always was). The pace of changes is rapid. However, the challenges posed by ads, paywalls, modals, and notifications can be frustrating, at least from my perspective.
Chromium-based browsers without Google extensions might be a start, like Vivaldi. I don't know which browser is gradually becoming obsolete, but let's hope it will be Safari and not Firefox! I'm 100% content with slow feature implementation though, as I always try to make my websites work well (enough) on older clients anyway.
Safari development has been really active lately. I'm even considering switching to it from Arc when the new release becomes available in the coming days, just to explore a different browser and see if I'm missing out on anything. I like to do this from time to time to promote browser diversity.
I would have more respect for Safari if Apple cared about backward compatibility and cross-platform support. As there is no Safari for Linux, I only use Safari for frontend testing, mostly focusing on bugs in their outdated iOS versions still widely used on older customer phones.
I tried GTK Web by the way, but although its engine should be similar to Safari, the browsers don't behave in a similar way either and I GTK Web has only a basic user interface.
But talking about browser diversity, I should probably give Firefox another chance as a default browser again.
Yeah, I completely understand your frustration. The main issue with Safari is that to get a new version, you need to update your entire operating system (macOS or iOS). It would be much more convenient if you could update the browser independently without having to update the entire system.
If a site has 30% of that journey, I immediatelly close it (unless there's something really important I need).
Well-documented!
This website is hilariously accurate about all the things mentioned in the post and more.
how-i-experience-web-today.com/
Yeah! This is hilarious! Thanks for sharing 😀
If 'Your O'Reilly' begins in the lower third of the screen, what comprises the rest? And what is the purpose of those blocks that look like ads? 🤔
Sergey how old are you? for how long you been working in this industry?
I'm 35 and have around 15 years of experience in webdev. I began coding back when IE6 was still a thing 😀.
Me too! well I'm almost 35 and I have 13 years in this industry.
I'm not a hater, just want to know what do you thing about my posture here.
btw, a popup is a window open by the window.open method. I think you are talking about modals instead of popups, right? :)
No, it's not. As far as I'm aware, there is no law that mandates the inclusion of a modal to explain the usage of auth cookies on your website. If you're referring to GDPR, it's important to note that you are obligated to display an additional notification only if you collect personal information or track your visitors using cookies.
Never used one on any website (except few web apps). They can be extremely distracting.
To be honest, I don't. When I require assistance, I usually locate the small icon in the lower right corner of the website, or I explore alternative methods to reach out to the support team, often found in the footer of the website.
GTM itself isn't a tracker (though being a creation of Google might suggest otherwise 😄); rather, it's a script that empowers marketing teams to independently insert ANY possible tracking script, without developer's help. The issue arises from the fact that these scripts tend to accumulate over time and rarely get removed. I fully grasp the significance of Google Analytics or similar tools for certain websites.
Anyway, Nicolás, thanks for your points of view and interesting thoughts 👍🤝
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