This is an epic comment with lots of great ideas and observations.
A few comments/opinions:
I don’t think the text should be proper black as in #000000. I find that slightly off black makes for a better reading experience, and I think this is pretty standard practice, though I may be mistaken.
I think it’s a feature that upvotes and downvotes appear above and below. I may want to see the count at the top before reading, but then again at the bottom so I can vote once I’ve read the post.
Agree that hamburgers aren’t great, but hover based UIs aren’t tablet friendly, so I’m not keen on that solution.
Strongly agree with the comment editor not being visually distinct enough. Multible times when writing this comment I’ve scrolled up to reference your comment, and then found it a little annoying to find where I was typing my reply.
Re: #1: It is common practice to make body text off-black. Is it good practice? Well, Matthew Butterick’s book, Butterick’s Practical Typography—considered a definitive work on the subject—uses black text.
You may note that Butterick suggests using off-black text—but consider his reasoning: the issue is contrast! As Butterick notes, screens emit light rather than absorbing it, making high contrast potentially painful to look at. Indeed; but darkening the background reduces the amount of light emitted, while lightening the text increases it. The former is superior as a way of reducing contrast. (Just don’t do both! That’s wholly unnecessary.)
Re: #2: Something to be A/B tested, I suppose. (Alternatively and even better: have this be user-configurable, via the account settings page, e.g.: “Display vote widget (•) above post only ( ) below post only ( ) both above and below post”. “Sane defaults plus comprehensive configuration options” is the gold standard of UX design for such matters.)
Re: #3: This is exactly the point of responsive design. Hover for desktop clients, hamburger for mobile. There is no reason at all to insist on a single, unified solution; web UIs should at all times be appropriate to the platform they’re being viewed on.
Re: #1: I to am a big fan of Practical Typography :) That’s a pretty good point, I actually don’t thik we disagree much. I think I may prefer just slightly prefer whiter backgrouds with slightly grey text. But only slightly.
Re: #2: I largely agree with this, though I might lean more on the side of giving the user less configuration options. Like, if you give everyone an option for everything, then the options get real cluttered. But I don’t have strong feeling about adding this preference in general.
This is an epic comment with lots of great ideas and observations.
A few comments/opinions:
I don’t think the text should be proper black as in #000000. I find that slightly off black makes for a better reading experience, and I think this is pretty standard practice, though I may be mistaken.
I think it’s a feature that upvotes and downvotes appear above and below. I may want to see the count at the top before reading, but then again at the bottom so I can vote once I’ve read the post.
Agree that hamburgers aren’t great, but hover based UIs aren’t tablet friendly, so I’m not keen on that solution.
Strongly agree with the comment editor not being visually distinct enough. Multible times when writing this comment I’ve scrolled up to reference your comment, and then found it a little annoying to find where I was typing my reply.
Thanks!
Re: #1: It is common practice to make body text off-black. Is it good practice? Well, Matthew Butterick’s book, Butterick’s Practical Typography—considered a definitive work on the subject—uses black text.
You may note that Butterick suggests using off-black text—but consider his reasoning: the issue is contrast! As Butterick notes, screens emit light rather than absorbing it, making high contrast potentially painful to look at. Indeed; but darkening the background reduces the amount of light emitted, while lightening the text increases it. The former is superior as a way of reducing contrast. (Just don’t do both! That’s wholly unnecessary.)
Edit: Check out readthesequences.com for an example of “black on off-white”.
Re: #2: Something to be A/B tested, I suppose. (Alternatively and even better: have this be user-configurable, via the account settings page, e.g.: “Display vote widget (•) above post only ( ) below post only ( ) both above and below post”. “Sane defaults plus comprehensive configuration options” is the gold standard of UX design for such matters.)
Re: #3: This is exactly the point of responsive design. Hover for desktop clients, hamburger for mobile. There is no reason at all to insist on a single, unified solution; web UIs should at all times be appropriate to the platform they’re being viewed on.
Re: #1: I to am a big fan of Practical Typography :) That’s a pretty good point, I actually don’t thik we disagree much. I think I may prefer just slightly prefer whiter backgrouds with slightly grey text. But only slightly.
Re: #2: I largely agree with this, though I might lean more on the side of giving the user less configuration options. Like, if you give everyone an option for everything, then the options get real cluttered. But I don’t have strong feeling about adding this preference in general.
Re: #3: Totally.