←back to thread

Making Software

(www.makingsoftware.com)
752 points calme_toi | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
Apfel ◴[] No.43714968[source]
Stunningly beautiful landing page. I would never normally comment on the aesthetics of anything in the dev sphere but that completely blew me away. I'll preorder for sure.

I'd echo the other comment mentioning that a coffee-table version of this would be great.

replies(2): >>43715285 #>>43716440 #
dimal ◴[] No.43716440[source]
Agreed, it's aesthetically beautiful. It should be a coffee table book. But for the web, it has terrible usability. Really, really terrible in multiple ways. My comments will be harsh, but since the creator is obviously very skilled, he should know better.

Why multicolumn text? So it looks like an old printed manual? At first view, it's not clear where the first column ends. This is not something we see on the web (because there's no need for it), so it's not clear that the content flows from one column to the next. When the viewport is sized to two columns, I need to scroll down to finish the first column, then scroll back up to read where it continues on the second column.

Justified text is bad on the web. We're starting to get some better features to make it usable, but it's not widely supported, so right ragged text is always more readable.

There are numerous animations that never stop. This is highly distracting and makes it very difficult to read the text.

I'm sure there are more issues but the site is so unusable for me, I won't continue trying.

So, yeah. It's gorgeous design. I love it. But it's for the sake of aesthetics, not for the user's sake. It's completely unusable to me. Since this is the first installment, I hope the designer will keep the aesthetics but improve the usability in future installments.

replies(4): >>43716479 #>>43717086 #>>43717332 #>>43718359 #
salomonk_mur ◴[] No.43717086[source]
Disagree on the animations. They are both beautiful and detailed, clearly illustrating the point.

Your other criticism I agree with.

replies(1): >>43717376 #
dimal ◴[] No.43717376[source]
I agree that they are beautiful and detailed, clearly illustrating the point. I really, really love them. I'd love to have them on my wall.

That's not my problem. My problem is that they never stop animating. For me and many other people, when something is moving in our visual field, it is very, very difficult to read the text next to it.

Full disclosure: I'm autistic. I was wondering whether I should mention that. All the issues that I mentioned exclude me from using this resource. So maybe we could call these accessibility issues instead of usability issues. When I disclose that I'm autistic, it tends to evoke two types of responses:

1) Oh, sorry, we'll make it accessible. But they do it out of shame, which I don't like. I'd rather it's out of empathy.

2) You're too small of a segment to care about.

But I'm beginning to think that the only difference between usability and accessibility is the size of the population that's being excluded by the design. I chose to keep my autisticness separate to see how people responded when I presented this as a usability issue instead of an accessibility issue.

I'm only asking that designers have empathy for all possible users of their media. That's all. That's what good design is supposed to do.

replies(3): >>43717931 #>>43721060 #>>43722566 #
1. layer8 ◴[] No.43717931[source]
I’m not autistic and I agree that nonstop animations are distracting and detrimental.
replies(1): >>43718724 #
2. dimal ◴[] No.43718724[source]
I hope you didn’t think I meant to imply that this is only bad for autistic people. I know that many other people have the same issues. But when I mention these problems to people that don’t have difficulty, sometimes they assume it’s just me and a tiny minority.
replies(1): >>43720527 #
3. layer8 ◴[] No.43720527[source]
I just didn’t want people to interpret your comment as only autistic people being bothered by this.