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This is also important for being able to show normal size text on smaller phones. I've got a 5.8" screen and basically every app is visually broken, with about

This is also important for being able to show normal size text on smaller phones. I've got a 5.8" screen and basically every app is visually broken, with about 10% functionally broken as well. Every web or app designer should get an iPhone Mini or similar, crank the font size accessibility setting, and make sure everything works. In particular, any text that is truncated needs to have a line-wrapped version available somewhere, every page with content needs to be scrollable, and the input box needs to be functional (e.g. it must show at least one line) when the keyboard is out. On web, use `overflow-wrap: break-word` and make sure your header can shrink.

Civitello 2y ago
As someone who has worked in compliance testing for tightly controlled software platforms, things like this piss me off. These problems have known solutions.
- nikanj 2y ago
  But the known solutions are old, and new is always better
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  Works on my <1yr old iPhone phablet. Ship it.
naitgacem 2y ago
I still use the Galaxy S8 with a 5.8" screen as well. It is actually quite amusing that nowadays this is considered "Small phone". I find it to be the perfect size and refuse to carry a brick around with me. Good thing in my country we still have 2G for when this breaks :P
hinkley 2y ago
The new Reddit login modal is a disaster even on an iPad mini in landscape mode. Does nobody test anything anymore?
- nicce 2y ago
  Everything in Reddit is disaster. They push the usage of mobile app so hard. Soon the time comes when old.reddit.com is no more and that is farewell.
  - calvinmorrison 2y ago
    I was so sad when they droppped the old /.compact interface which was heavenly
  - hinkley 2y ago
    The new login is showing up on old.reddit.com
    - matheusmoreira 2y ago
      Just noticed that yesterday. Almost made me give up on logging in and posting. The day old reddit is gone will probably be the day I can't tolerate it any longer.
      - assimpleaspossi 2y ago
        I can't tolerate it now
  - smrtinsert 2y ago
    why bother when there are no competitors and you make all your money from the endless google stream?
    - immibis 2y ago
      I already avoid Reddit search results in Google because the site is crap, unless there's no other option (and then I force it to Old Reddit), just like I avoid the sites full of popup ads. Without users writing new content (because the site is crap) the Google stream will dry up too.
wruza 2y ago
I remember having a heated discussion with an LLM about this. For some reason "web" doesn't even consider to respect dpi and angular sizes and instead relies on "breakpoints", which "is important to remember to test on all sorts of devices". That's just bs. As a maker of UI, I want to get a rectangle, put my controls on it with the sizes in cm/in/° as I see fit and then to just slide right-bottom to see what happens on different screen sizes. One doesn't have to buy a foot-high stack of smartphones and tablets to test an effing label. The whole issue stems from the fact we can't measure things correctly, cause the whole measurement system bases on ideas from winword era.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  > For some reason "web" doesn't even consider to respect dpi and angular sizes Maybe I'm not sure what you mean, but this is not correct. "The web" is definitely DPI-independent. Specifying a width of 16px will render 32 physical pixels on a @2x display.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  What's stopping you from using cm/in as your unit (which is actually also what px is based off of in the web, not physical pixels)? ° doesn't make sense until you pick a viewing distance, at which point you're really back to some scaled value of cm/in.
  - wruza 2y ago
    What's stopping you from using cm/in as your unit Not gonna rewrite or patch a whole CSS framework to make a dashboard. One can avoid using it in the first place, but then has to cope with elusive y-scroll in line inputs, misalignments and so on. There's always something strange out of box even if you target a specific browser.
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      Which CSS framework out of curiosity? I don't know many that won't let you use px, which is 1/96th an inch at any DPI, and if it really doesn't let you use the most basic sizing element on the web then the problem seems more with the chosen framework than anything to do with browsers :p.
ffsm8 2y ago
In medium to big enterprise you usually ask someone to give you the resolutions that's you're supposed to support. These re resolutions are usually significantly higher then the iPhone mini. usually The product owner or UX/design make that decision because you need to make a cut somewhere, and almost nobody uses small phones anymore. So they're making the judgement call that these people aren't worth the money creating the design, testing that every flow works correctly etc. It's definitely annoying to be outside of the target demographic however, I know the feeling well.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean: - Their intent isn't small resolution, they're discussing increasing font size beyond the default on a standard premium smart phone[1] - Retina displays came out when I was still in college...2010? At that point, resolution is meaningless, things like dp (Android parlance)/pts (iOS parlance)/points (Adobe or font parlance) rem are what you have to hang your hat on - if you're making "someone else" (?) tell you what resolutions to support, are they technical enough to understand that? - The invocation of "medium to big enterprise" is carrying a lot of weight, the big enterprises I've worked at certainly didn't do this, but it was Google I think this is something more depressing that I saw constantly through the eyes of someone who started at SmallCo then went to Google: designers didn't know enough about view layout to explain this, engineers didn't care enough to explain because it was a "design thing", and if you were an engineer who cared enough, you were seen as troublesome / sticking your nose in the wrong place by your fellow engineers. This isn't an idle observation: by sticking my nose in the wrong place continually, I learned enough about design to make a new dynamic design system that no one cared about until VPs needed one, and then it got in on the branding for Material You/Material 3. [1] iPhone Mini is 5.4", the post you're replying to is recommending 5.8", that's a pretty de rigeur smart phone screen, even for premium smart phones in high income countries
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    I used the term resolution as a stand-in for how the question is asked, as I thought everyone here would understand it easier like that. Ofc the person isn't asked which pixel density, pixel ratio, resolution etc should be supported - they're asked what the smallest device is they should support. And this is usually the iPhone, and raising issues if a design doesn't work on a iPhone mini gets reprioritized into the backlog until someone closes it as won't fix. And yes, I'd wager these multinational giga corporations like MAMA (Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Alphabet) are very different in culture, but I can't speak from experience, Ive never applied to work for any of them I believe my nation classifies small enterprise to be <50 employees, with large starting at 250. That's a very different organisation structure then you get in a corporation with tens of thousands of employees, spanning multiple nations.
cwbrandsma 2y ago
My designer will do that, and is pretty good. The problem is my product team, who have very little technical background. They look at the designs are start messing with everything. I have to constantly remind them of AA compliance. They flat out don't get it. They also don't understand that people will visit your web site with their phone, even tho we have a native app.
- colecut 2y ago
  I am one of those users who regularly use website over installing an app, even for some things I use daily. I think things that can be a website should be a website =)
  - resonious 2y ago
    Yeah the whole fact that app devs need to beg so hard to get people to install an app should be a pretty big hint...
acqq 2y ago
And then imagine how it all appears on my 4inch-screen iPhone, if 5.8 inch is already too small.
peter_l_downs 2y ago
I use an iPhone SE (4.7") with slightly larger default text size (accessibility settings) and have the same experience. Everything more or less "works" though, so it's not as bad as it could be --- the visual issues basically just help me spend less time on my phone. I don't think I've ever seen a website respect my phone's text size, and frankly I didn't know it was posisble, this Airbnb blog post is cool and makes me want to update my own sites.
niutech 2y ago
5.8" is "smaller" screen? So what will you tell about my 4.5" BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, which I use for daily web browsing? 5.8" is huge, it cannot fit in the pocket!

Civitello 2y ago

As someone who has worked in compliance testing for tightly controlled software platforms, things like this piss me off. These problems have known solutions.

nikanj 2y ago
But the known solutions are old, and new is always better
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
Works on my <1yr old iPhone phablet. Ship it.

naitgacem 2y ago

I still use the Galaxy S8 with a 5.8" screen as well. It is actually quite amusing that nowadays this is considered "Small phone". I find it to be the perfect size and refuse to carry a brick around with me. Good thing in my country we still have 2G for when this breaks :P

hinkley 2y ago

The new Reddit login modal is a disaster even on an iPad mini in landscape mode. Does nobody test anything anymore?

nicce 2y ago
Everything in Reddit is disaster. They push the usage of mobile app so hard. Soon the time comes when old.reddit.com is no more and that is farewell.
- calvinmorrison 2y ago
  I was so sad when they droppped the old /.compact interface which was heavenly
- hinkley 2y ago
  The new login is showing up on old.reddit.com
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    Just noticed that yesterday. Almost made me give up on logging in and posting. The day old reddit is gone will probably be the day I can't tolerate it any longer.
    - assimpleaspossi 2y ago
      I can't tolerate it now
- smrtinsert 2y ago
  why bother when there are no competitors and you make all your money from the endless google stream?
  - immibis 2y ago
    I already avoid Reddit search results in Google because the site is crap, unless there's no other option (and then I force it to Old Reddit), just like I avoid the sites full of popup ads. Without users writing new content (because the site is crap) the Google stream will dry up too.

wruza 2y ago

I remember having a heated discussion with an LLM about this. For some reason "web" doesn't even consider to respect dpi and angular sizes and instead relies on "breakpoints", which "is important to remember to test on all sorts of devices". That's just bs. As a maker of UI, I want to get a rectangle, put my controls on it with the sizes in cm/in/° as I see fit and then to just slide right-bottom to see what happens on different screen sizes. One doesn't have to buy a foot-high stack of smartphones and tablets to test an effing label. The whole issue stems from the fact we can't measure things correctly, cause the whole measurement system bases on ideas from winword era.

madeofpalk 2y ago
> For some reason "web" doesn't even consider to respect dpi and angular sizes Maybe I'm not sure what you mean, but this is not correct. "The web" is definitely DPI-independent. Specifying a width of 16px will render 32 physical pixels on a @2x display.
zamadatix 2y ago
What's stopping you from using cm/in as your unit (which is actually also what px is based off of in the web, not physical pixels)? ° doesn't make sense until you pick a viewing distance, at which point you're really back to some scaled value of cm/in.
- wruza 2y ago
  What's stopping you from using cm/in as your unit Not gonna rewrite or patch a whole CSS framework to make a dashboard. One can avoid using it in the first place, but then has to cope with elusive y-scroll in line inputs, misalignments and so on. There's always something strange out of box even if you target a specific browser.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Which CSS framework out of curiosity? I don't know many that won't let you use px, which is 1/96th an inch at any DPI, and if it really doesn't let you use the most basic sizing element on the web then the problem seems more with the chosen framework than anything to do with browsers :p.

ffsm8 2y ago

In medium to big enterprise you usually ask someone to give you the resolutions that's you're supposed to support. These re resolutions are usually significantly higher then the iPhone mini. usually The product owner or UX/design make that decision because you need to make a cut somewhere, and almost nobody uses small phones anymore. So they're making the judgement call that these people aren't worth the money creating the design, testing that every flow works correctly etc. It's definitely annoying to be outside of the target demographic however, I know the feeling well.

refulgentis 2y ago
I'm not sure what you mean: - Their intent isn't small resolution, they're discussing increasing font size beyond the default on a standard premium smart phone[1] - Retina displays came out when I was still in college...2010? At that point, resolution is meaningless, things like dp (Android parlance)/pts (iOS parlance)/points (Adobe or font parlance) rem are what you have to hang your hat on - if you're making "someone else" (?) tell you what resolutions to support, are they technical enough to understand that? - The invocation of "medium to big enterprise" is carrying a lot of weight, the big enterprises I've worked at certainly didn't do this, but it was Google I think this is something more depressing that I saw constantly through the eyes of someone who started at SmallCo then went to Google: designers didn't know enough about view layout to explain this, engineers didn't care enough to explain because it was a "design thing", and if you were an engineer who cared enough, you were seen as troublesome / sticking your nose in the wrong place by your fellow engineers. This isn't an idle observation: by sticking my nose in the wrong place continually, I learned enough about design to make a new dynamic design system that no one cared about until VPs needed one, and then it got in on the branding for Material You/Material 3. [1] iPhone Mini is 5.4", the post you're replying to is recommending 5.8", that's a pretty de rigeur smart phone screen, even for premium smart phones in high income countries
- ffsm8 2y ago
  I used the term resolution as a stand-in for how the question is asked, as I thought everyone here would understand it easier like that. Ofc the person isn't asked which pixel density, pixel ratio, resolution etc should be supported - they're asked what the smallest device is they should support. And this is usually the iPhone, and raising issues if a design doesn't work on a iPhone mini gets reprioritized into the backlog until someone closes it as won't fix. And yes, I'd wager these multinational giga corporations like MAMA (Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Alphabet) are very different in culture, but I can't speak from experience, Ive never applied to work for any of them I believe my nation classifies small enterprise to be <50 employees, with large starting at 250. That's a very different organisation structure then you get in a corporation with tens of thousands of employees, spanning multiple nations.

cwbrandsma 2y ago

My designer will do that, and is pretty good. The problem is my product team, who have very little technical background. They look at the designs are start messing with everything. I have to constantly remind them of AA compliance. They flat out don't get it. They also don't understand that people will visit your web site with their phone, even tho we have a native app.

colecut 2y ago
I am one of those users who regularly use website over installing an app, even for some things I use daily. I think things that can be a website should be a website =)
- resonious 2y ago
  Yeah the whole fact that app devs need to beg so hard to get people to install an app should be a pretty big hint...

acqq 2y ago

And then imagine how it all appears on my 4inch-screen iPhone, if 5.8 inch is already too small.

peter_l_downs 2y ago

I use an iPhone SE (4.7") with slightly larger default text size (accessibility settings) and have the same experience. Everything more or less "works" though, so it's not as bad as it could be --- the visual issues basically just help me spend less time on my phone. I don't think I've ever seen a website respect my phone's text size, and frankly I didn't know it was posisble, this Airbnb blog post is cool and makes me want to update my own sites.

niutech 2y ago

5.8" is "smaller" screen? So what will you tell about my 4.5" BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, which I use for daily web browsing? 5.8" is huge, it cannot fit in the pocket!