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0 pointsnotSupplied5y ago0 comments

I agree with this. I think design has a serious principle-agent problem.

A beautiful design will live forever on your personal portfolio, but no one can directly experience usability there. So designers are fighting competing incentives to do what’s right for this product, and what’s right for their professional image. I think this is partly the cause for trend toward stylish-but-less-useable.

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ghaff5y ago

Furthermore, many designers--at least those developing mobile apps etc.--are young people with good eyesight. There's also a general fashion element but I suspect this is one factor in the popularity of thin, small fonts today. (TBF, there's also a general trend towards simpler logos and the like which render well on mobile.)

valuearb5y ago

Don’t get me started on font sizes. I’m older now and theee designs hurt my eyes.

And on iOS if you use the system font and standard styles, text automatically adjusts to accessibility settings. So I always suggest that but every designer wants to “make their mark” with custom fonts that either font work with accessibility or require a bunch of extra coding that the product owner never gives time for.

ryandrake5y ago

That's the sad thing! If the developer would just stop coding for a minute, and use standard controls and fonts, you get a lot for free. Including proper resizing, accessibility, all the niceties that iOS provides built-in. The more you try to customize, write your own controls, and fight the standard tools; the more clever you try to be, the fewer and fewer things "just work".