(None of this is getting into cookie popups, banner ads, etc., which is a separate discussion.)
Bitch, this screen is like 2 inches wide, you better not waste a single fucking pixel. Reading a paragraph that only fits 30 characters per line* is fucking exhausting. “Just reduce the font size!” Then it gets hard to read because it’s too small. But the main thing is: I shouldn’t have to! The pixels are already there for you to use! Fucking use them! Are you stupid!?
“But what about people with fat fingers?” First of all, if you’re gripping it that tight, you will accidentally press things and make it impossible to use your phone. Just grip it lighter, or grip it at the top or bottom, get one of those grip rings for the back, or put in on a table, dummy! You’re not reading a long text while fucking running out and about, you don’t need stability.
Bonus points if your device is black and you use a dark theme, which could use the bezels as free margins but no, I read on some shitty design blog 13 years ago about “negative space” or “air” or “flow” or “visual clarity” or some other bullshit some fresh tech bro pulled out of his ass after an ayahuasca pilgrimage.
*
Yeah I know, too long lines are also bad. That doesn’t mean too short lines are good. Fuck you! Do a proper layout!
The current web design trend of tons of blank space and shortened lines of text is very silly.
I wonder if it’s the ridiculously narrow form factors of modern phones that make it kind of hard to lay out text on (plus designers don’t really care about typography). A 3:4 layout would be so much better for text.
Maybe, but at least vertically you can scroll. Horizontally you are at the mercy of the designer. Sure, bad typography bothers me, but almost every other aspect is tolerable if you squint, but no matter how hard you squint you can’t make the lines longer.
When Wikipedia changed their default desktop layout to the current trend chasing mobile-like view a lot of people pushing the change in talk pages mentioned a study which supposedly proved that shorter lines of text are easier to read,
Seems like a skill issue tbh.
Shorter relative to what!? Shorter relative to what, motherfucker!??!?!!?!!??!