Quote:
Originally Posted by wodin
Agreed, I've also noticed the trend towards lower contrast colors. As my vision deteriorates with age I've come to realize that ctrl-plus is my friend. It does, however cause an overabundance of horizontal scrolling.
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I've hit the designer at my company over the head with it for two years.
"You're designing unreadable sites. Not everybody has 20/20 vision. Some people have problems (case in point: me). There are also old people who need to use computers."
His response was: "Well, this is modern design. And most people have normal vision. I'm not going to compromise for only a few people."
Also, *HE* had a somewhat OK screen; a lower-end IPS screen with acceptable viewing angles. When I showed him his sites on an el-cheapo TN-type screen, where all of his nice graduations count for nothing and text disappears into the background, his only comment was that people just had to use good screens.
As long as designers keep thinking that the only thing that counts is their design, the web (and software) will keep deteriorating. To be honest, I don't see myself working until 67. I could work perfectly with any computer up until 2005-2006. ANY program I ever used fit nicely into 1280x960 at most, and many of them were usable at 1024x768. So, I could use a smaller CRT such as a 15 inch at 1024x768, and a bigger one at 1280x960 or something. Everything fit, and you could do actual work on a lower resolution, even with only one monitor.
When monitors became bigger and resolutions became higher, due to cheap TFT-screens, everything with regard to keeping stuff usable with less screen real estate went out of the window.
Now, many programs need at AT LEAST 1280x720 (instead of at most). Some need more, such as Adobe Reader, which has a print dialog that is around 1000 pixels high. That makes such programs very hard to use on my laptop, which is at 150% (1920x1080, but 1280x720, effectively.) Some programs have been designed for a 'normal' monitor, such as 19 inch at 1280x1024, and STILL don't support high-dpi scaling, which has been part of Windows since XP. Those programs are unusable on any screen that is not set to 100%, because when upscaling them.
Not to mention the idiotic sticky headers that seem to become bigger and bigger on many sites. Sometimes the browser tabs + header takes up 30% of the vertical space, and I dislike reading on the bottom of the screen.
There is also a trend to use huge images and titles in combination with small body text. Not resizing leaves you with unreadable body text; resizing leaves you with titles and images so big that a blind man can view them from a 100 yards away.