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Cough, cough... HN? "Keep body text at 16px or above 16px is the default text size in most browsers. Text below this size gets harder to read, so it’s safest

Cough, cough... HN? "Keep body text at 16px or above 16px is the default text size in most browsers. Text below this size gets harder to read, so it’s safest to avoid it for body text. The higher you go beyond 16px, the easier the text is to read."

account42 4y ago
Text should have the same size today is it did in the 90s. If your monitor has a higher resolution then please use DPI scaling isntead of wasting screen space for everyone else. That way old websites will still be readable without having to update everything.
- kuschku 4y ago
  HN would have rendered at the equivalent of 16px (exactly, actually) on a 90s computer. The issue here is that Apple and Windows assume two different default DPIs for a 90s computer (72 vs 96dpi), and as result, what 1pt is can differ by 1/3rd.
krapp 4y ago
Hacker News was designed by someone who considers design a waste of time and a distraction from the purity of information, and who made the site ugly and awkward on purpose to keep normies away. Honestly we're lucky it looks as good as it does.
- Angelore 4y ago
  One "feature" of an aggressively simplistic design is that it's relatively easy to customize. Here is my personal take (I use stylus extension for firefox to inject the css) https://gist.github.com/Angelore/77999cc2152dfbcd38f18ba6a7a2b08c https://gist.github.com/Angelore/77999cc2152dfbcd38f18ba6a7a...
- xigoi 4y ago
  IMO, HN looks better than many sites created by professional designers. It allows you to actually read the content instead of waiting ten seconds for the page to load, then scrolling through kilometers of whitespace and unrelated “hero images”.
  - krapp 4y ago
    >It allows you to actually read the content instead of waiting ten seconds for the page to load, then scrolling through kilometers of whitespace and unrelated “hero images”. I'm able to read the content on every site I visit even when it has whitespace and images but to each their own. I'm glad Hacker News serves your needs.
    - xigoi 4y ago
      I'm glad you have a fast unlimited internet connection and a big screen. Not everyone has that privilege.
AdrianB1 4y ago
Out of curiosity, I played around with HN font size: by default on my monitor is 12px, at 13px is almost the same, at 14px is great, 16px is not better than 14px so it is wasting screen space. I think it depends a lot on the pixel physical size, that means diagonal and resolution.
huhtenberg 4y ago
Well spotted. That's the only point on his list that is 100% wrong. The rest is actually spot on.

account42 4y ago

Text should have the same size today is it did in the 90s. If your monitor has a higher resolution then please use DPI scaling isntead of wasting screen space for everyone else. That way old websites will still be readable without having to update everything.

kuschku 4y ago
HN would have rendered at the equivalent of 16px (exactly, actually) on a 90s computer. The issue here is that Apple and Windows assume two different default DPIs for a 90s computer (72 vs 96dpi), and as result, what 1pt is can differ by 1/3rd.

krapp 4y ago

Hacker News was designed by someone who considers design a waste of time and a distraction from the purity of information, and who made the site ugly and awkward on purpose to keep normies away. Honestly we're lucky it looks as good as it does.

Angelore 4y ago
One "feature" of an aggressively simplistic design is that it's relatively easy to customize. Here is my personal take (I use stylus extension for firefox to inject the css) https://gist.github.com/Angelore/77999cc2152dfbcd38f18ba6a7a2b08c https://gist.github.com/Angelore/77999cc2152dfbcd38f18ba6a7a...
xigoi 4y ago
IMO, HN looks better than many sites created by professional designers. It allows you to actually read the content instead of waiting ten seconds for the page to load, then scrolling through kilometers of whitespace and unrelated “hero images”.
- krapp 4y ago
  >It allows you to actually read the content instead of waiting ten seconds for the page to load, then scrolling through kilometers of whitespace and unrelated “hero images”. I'm able to read the content on every site I visit even when it has whitespace and images but to each their own. I'm glad Hacker News serves your needs.
  - xigoi 4y ago
    I'm glad you have a fast unlimited internet connection and a big screen. Not everyone has that privilege.

AdrianB1 4y ago

Out of curiosity, I played around with HN font size: by default on my monitor is 12px, at 13px is almost the same, at 14px is great, 16px is not better than 14px so it is wasting screen space. I think it depends a lot on the pixel physical size, that means diagonal and resolution.

huhtenberg 4y ago

Well spotted. That's the only point on his list that is 100% wrong. The rest is actually spot on.