The 'Janet and John' school of website design

[RogerS]

Can any web designers out there please explain to me why this current mania for filling webpages with white? I have a 21" screen on my iMac. The latest banal redesigned website I came across is Apple's support page. Here it is. It uses 1% of my available screen space to provide information. Why, FFS ?
Apple are not alone in adopting the format - more suited to a two-year old reading primer. I threw in my newspaper subscription because they've gone down the 'Janet and John' route.

 

[Alex H]

Easier to read on a mobile device?

(I am not a web designer )

 

[RogerS]

Easier to read on a mobile device?

(I am not a web designer )

No, just looked...it's still as bad...about five letters per screen and then you have to scroll down to get the next five letters and then again and again. OK...maybe it's twenty letters and not five but you get my drift.

 

[RogerP]

It drives me mad too. I guess it's so it fits on a phone screen. They are assuming everyone is accessing the web on a smart phone and has a teenager's eyesight. Of course a decent bit of coding would read what you are using and deliver a suitable page.

 

[RogerS]

It drives me mad too. I guess it's so it fits on a phone screen. They are assuming everyone is accessing the web on a smart phone and has a teenager's eyesight. Of course a decent bit of coding would read what you are using and deliver a suitable page.

I thought that that was the reason and so I just checked.

Looking at the opening webpage on the Apple communities support site shows one screen of white, a tiny sign in prompt and a graphic of OSX. You still have to scroll down to start to find a section that you might be interested in, such as Mavericks, but then you have to scroll sideways and sideways and sideways to see all the options. So still a **** design.

 

[Jacob]

press command + or - to fit the screen

 

[MattRoberts]

Not really sure what that screenshot is showing to be honest?

 

[RogerS]

press command + or - to fit the screen

All that does is zoom in/out, Jacob. It does nothing to improve either readability or the amount of (or rather lack of) information displayed on the screen. if you zoom out to, for example, reduce the font size all you get is a bit of information down the centre third of the screen and two totally blank white columns in the lefthand and righthand thirds. Maybe Apple should only now charge us 1/3 the price of an iMac ?


Good point, Matt...precious little information. It is a question that someone asked if it was possible to set Safari to default to private browsing in Mavericks. The answer is about six inches of white space lower down.

 

[woodpig]

I can't say I really understand your problem, it looks fine to me. Is it that you'd prefer some kind of coloured background?

I've looked at apple support on an iPad and an iMac and it looks fine to me. The page is only ever going to supply the information requested so if it's a short reply surely you wouldn't expect them to fill the remaining space with irrelevant text? If the text is too small for you then you can alter it somewhere in settings or another option is to change the screen resolution. I also look at the "papers" from time to time and none of them look too bad to me.

 

[RogerS]

@woodpig

Drill down and look at one of the links, for example...'more resolution options....' and this is what you get. If I wanted to read my iMac from the other side of the room then this layout and font is perfect [/irony mode]

With the previous layouts you would get probably three or four responses on the same page.

It's not a question of the text being too small but the opposite. Neither changing screen resolution nor font size (not sure where you can change just the font size in safari, if indeed you can as I can't find any such option).

As far as online newspapers go, I stopped reading one sentence paragraphs when I was in primary school !

(This isn't meant to come across as a poke at you, by the way.)

 

[MattRoberts]

@woodpig

Drill down and look at one of the links, for example...'more resolution options....' and this is what you get. If I wanted to read my iMac from the other side of the room then this layout and font is perfect [/irony mode]

With the previous layouts you would get probably three or four responses on the same page.

It's not a question of the text being too small but the opposite. Neither changing screen resolution nor font size (not sure where you can change just the font size in safari, if indeed you can as I can't find any such option).

As far as online newspapers go, I stopped reading one sentence paragraphs when I was in primary school !


(This isn't meant to come across as a poke at you, by the way.)

You do realise that you wrote that post using one sentence paragraphs...?

 

[RogerS]

@woodpig

Drill down and look at one of the links, for example...'more resolution options....' and this is what you get. If I wanted to read my iMac from the other side of the room then this layout and font is perfect [/irony mode]

With the previous layouts you would get probably three or four responses on the same page.

It's not a question of the text being too small but the opposite. Neither changing screen resolution nor font size (not sure where you can change just the font size in safari, if indeed you can as I can't find any such option).

As far as online newspapers go, I stopped reading one sentence paragraphs when I was in primary school !


(This isn't meant to come across as a poke at you, by the way.)

LOL!! It's the new disease, I tell you.
You do realise that you wrote that post using one sentence paragraphs...?

 

[woodpig]

(This isn't meant to come across as a poke at you, by the way.)

No offence taken!

I've just looked at the Dell and Microsoft sites and they look pretty similar so it's a common theme.

I see what you mean about that Sunday Times page though, it does look a bit anemic for a newspaper! :lol:

 

[MattRoberts]

It's actually easier to read for the majority. There's a maximum words per line for readability (between 7 and 11 I believe), as well as usability studies showing that by giving page layouts breathing room (white space), they're easier to consume.

Not saying that particular page is the greatest though... They

 

[RogerS]

It's actually easier to read for the majority. There's a maximum words per line for readability (between 7 and 11 I believe), as well as usability studies showing that by giving page layouts breathing room (white space), they're easier to consume.

Not saying that particular page is the greatest though... They

Do you have any links regarding any research ? I'd be interested to read more. Maybe the figures of 7 and 11 refer to the reading age of most young people these days (who will be the people un-designing websites) ?

 

[Bale]

Do you have any links regarding any research ? I'd be interested to read more. Maybe the figures of 7 and 11 refer to the reading age of most young people these days (who will be the people un-designing websites) ?

It's not so much research as guiding principles of typography. I have forgotten most of what I used to know about it, but yes, there are optimum word and character counts per line to enhance the legibility of text for the reader. I used to bang on about this sort of thing on websites years ago, but gave up because no-one took a blind bit of notice. Most web designers these days seem to be unaware of any typographic principles at all. It's a bit disappointing to see that when some of the bigger names try to make their pages easier to read, people complain about it :wink:

Pete

 

[MattRoberts]

It's actually easier to read for the majority. There's a maximum words per line for readability (between 7 and 11 I believe), as well as usability studies showing that by giving page layouts breathing room (white space), they're easier to consume.

Not saying that particular page is the greatest though... They

Do you have any links regarding any research ? I'd be interested to read more. Maybe the figures of 7 and 11 refer to the reading age of most young people these days (who will be the people un-designing websites) ?

Sure : https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/0 ... eb-design/

http://maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/

I've actually conducted a lot of usability tests myself (it's part of what I do), and find it fascinating - especially the psychology behind it. I've written a white paper on this sort of thing if you're interested

 

[RogerS]

It's actually easier to read for the majority. There's a maximum words per line for readability (between 7 and 11 I believe), as well as usability studies showing that by giving page layouts breathing room (white space), they're easier to consume.

Not saying that particular page is the greatest though... They

Do you have any links regarding any research ? I'd be interested to read more. Maybe the figures of 7 and 11 refer to the reading age of most young people these days (who will be the people un-designing websites) ?

Sure : https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/0 ... eb-design/

http://maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/

I've actually conducted a lot of usability tests myself (it's part of what I do), and find it fascinating - especially the psychology behind it. I've written a white paper on this sort of thing if you're interested

Many thanks, Matt. Yes please, I would be very interested in the WP

 

[MattRoberts]

Sure : http://research.caciconsult.co.uk/onlin ... -how-good/

 

[RogerS]

Interesting links, thanks, Matt. I can see where the main thrust is coming from but not too sure why or what has prompted this mani for the 'Janet and john' approach. As you said, could be mobile phones and iPads and sod the desktop user. Trouble is these new layouts just don't look right and I find them much harder to read. I know that I am not alone in this. I wish I had some archive shots of the old Apple discussion forum or The Times for comparison purposes as those really were 'fit for purpose' IMO. Possibly it's down to the users offline experience. For instance if, like me, you're used to poring over dense text in documents and books then doing the same on-screen is no different. Maybe the average reading age of your average website viewer has now dropped to single figures :wink: