undefined | Better HN

0 pointsreaperducer5y ago0 comments

I think it's also about different types of recipe collections.

There are cookbooks that are all recipes. This seems to be what the HN crowd is looking for when they search the internet.

There are cookbooks where each recipe is accompanied by a little story. These seem to sell well, judging by the number of them that appear on bookstore shelves.

And then there are cookbooks where all of the anecdotes are in the front of the book and the recipes are in the back. These are the ones I like because I can easily find what I'm looking for, but can still read the background about a recipe, if I choose. It's not right in front of me causing the actual recipe steps to continue on another page.

I think recipes and the internet don't mix, unless you're just looking up ingredients while shopping. It's one of the areas where a fat, old cookbook is always better, in my experience.

30 years from now, nobody is going to cherish grandma's dog-eared and tattered old iPad full of recipes.

0 comments

Pxtl5y ago

I wouldn't mind the "recipe at the end" format if that were the actual case.

But it's not at the end. The actual structure of a modern recipe article is

1) Header

2) Blogpost

3) Click to read button

4) More blogpost, structured in a format that looks like an informal recipe - bulleted ingredients without quantities, discussion of steps.

5) Ad.

6) More blogpost

7) More ad that looks confusingly like a kind of recipe.

8) More blogpost

9) Nav that looks like the end of the blogpost.

10) More blogpost

11) Ad

12) Recipe ingredients

13) Ad

14) Recipe directions

15) 20 pages of chumbox, some of which structured in a way that kind of looks like a recipe at a glance.

Combined with some wonky JS that doesn't show the content until a half-second after I scroll it into view.

When I've got the recipe it feels like I've found Waldo.

linsomniac5y ago

And that's not the worst of it. Here's what I really hate:

- Search page and eventually find the recipe.

- Start making recipe. Up to my elbows in ingredients.

- Glance over to see the next ingredient I need, but there's now a pop-over I need to dismiss before I can see the recipe.

- Look for next ingredient, and it's scrolled off the screen because one or more adverts in the page have reloaded and have different sizes.

Most recipe sites have a nearly unusable UX.

lancesells5y ago

You forgot the pop-up modal asking you to subscribe. Then you close that to get subjected to the bottom-floating one while you scroll.

ginko5y ago

>And then there are cookbooks where all of the anecdotes are in the front of the book and the recipes are in the back. These are the ones I like because I can easily find what I'm looking for, but can still read the background about a recipe, if I choose.

I inherited a series of Time Life cookbooks from my grandmother. They must have been printed in the 70s. Each of them essentially comes in two parts. A full size book with lots of pictures, introductions and visual guides and a small ring-bound booklet that's essentially all recipes. What I also find interesting about them is that many recipes are rather laborious and from scratch since they were written before having all that many kitchen appliances and pre-made ingredients.

mdszy5y ago

There's also cookbooks that are almost more like a textbook, with technical cooking information followed by recipes (almost like textbook information followed by exercises).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse