Darrell Anderson composed on 2024-05-21 11:34 (UTC-0500):
Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:
who teaches devopers to make pick the smallest, contrast-less fonts possible and don't let the user escape that hell? Thin pastel fonts on gray backgroud, really?
I think this derives from a couple of places: 1) smart phones and tablets, and 2) developers using monitors bigger than most TVs. Either way developers lose any sense of proportion or usability.
Smart phones may have bloated the problem, but they certainly are not the derivation, as the problem dates back to well before the web arrived on mobile phones.
I have been complaining about small fonts for about 20 years, especially web sites. Now that I am old and grumpy, small fonts are poison for folks like me.
me2
Those developers with big monitors likely test only for big monitors and smart phones. Often they do not seem to test for anything in between such as laptops and modest home systems.
It's not just developers using big monitors, but also who as a group website developers are - mainly relative youngsters with good eyesight. In general, people with poor eyesight don't get into any business involving constant or extensive PC use, but more like quite the opposite. They're mostly naive youngsters or relative youngsters who don't have any clue about the trouble they cause force-feeding mousetype and demi-weight fonts. At least, they don't until they've been at it a while, and learn that testing is inadequate unless also using environments less like those they themselves use for their daily work.
I struggle with this in the house network. TV is 37" 1920x1080, office desktop is 22" 1920x1080, laptop 1 is 15" 1920x1080, laptop 2 is 14" 1280x800. Testing systems include 19" 1680x1050, 21" 1600x900 monitor, 17" 1280x1024, and 15" 1024x768.
55" 3840x2160 LR TV; 24" 1920x1200 main display; 27" 2560x1440, 24" 1920x1200, 22" 1680x1050 X3, 31.5" 1920x1080 (TV) displays for secondary PC and test PCs continuously at ready (6 total always on desk); 14" 1280x800 laptops; 20" 1600x900 X2, 19" 1440x900, 17" 1280x1024, 14" 1024x768 X2, any of which can be added to the six. In the guest bedroom there's a 24" 1920x1200 iMac and 43" 1920x1080 TV.
Back in the day of 4:3 aspect ratios, there was not much choice and video cards were designed for that. Nowadays monitor sizes and resolutions are all over the place. I don't think developers and engineers have really caught up.
That and their addiction to the power CSS gives them to make everything "just so" to their own liking.