I enjoyed this fun poke at television UX far more than I enjoy watching football. Thanks for sharing!
This guy has opinions about ampersands that I didn't know someone could have. It was delightful and makes me glad I'm on HN.
That being said, these are opinions, and I’m glad there’s someone else who pays attention to the design language used by football broadcasters.
I feel like once you have the knowledge to pay attention to design language you are now cursed to do so everywhere. It's like the curse of a trained ear - congratulations on being able to hear any chord progression, now you can't escape every song you ever liked being the same 4 chords over and over again.
For a long time in my career as a software engineer I mostly avoided this, but a little over a decade ago I had a designer who beat tiny details into everyone on the team. I kinda feel like he took away my innocence to some extent, as I can’t look at fonts, colors, and other design details anymore without noticing all the flaws so pervasive all around us.
It is very true. A common example is kerning (hence the joke, keming). Once you learn the nuances of spacing between letters you start to notice it everywhere.
There was also a great SNL skit about a graphics designer who was haunted by the Avatar logo which was simply the papyrus font.
I've seen corporate re-branding efforts first hand and his introspection to how, potentially, CBS is always about the CBS-way is kinda funny. This is kind of like how I think system integration issues inside a software company almost are a tell of how the org is structured.
b) the football field is extremely well-marked to easily determine the field position
Of course field goal range is subjective. That's my point. If I know the position on the field I can make my own decision based on my perception of our kicker.
> b) the football field is extremely well-marked to easily determine the field position
Yes, when it is on screen. Between plays a wide angle of the field is rare.
The amount of work it would take for every network to know every kicker and create a framework for showing that is a lot higher than for you to know your team's kicker, which odds are you already know anyway. Though it creates another marketing opportunity (Red Gold Red Zone, anyone?) so maybe it's just a matter of time.
3rd & inches from the 1 would indicate the chance to get a 1st down, and additional downs to score.
I'll summon my FOSS-based knowledge of UX to suggest a change:
Change "3rd & GOAL" to "3rd -g --ONLY_INCHES_TO_GO=NULL" and "3rd & INCHES" to "3rd -g --ONLY_INCHES_TO_GO=4"
You are wrong.
> When the ball snaps you can see the yardline and they do usually put up a field goal line when its appropriate.
Uh huh, when it snaps. But between the previous down and the snap spectators are in the dark. I can buy a 70" TV for less than $1,000.00. I don't need to save space on the screen. I need context.
> Amid its grandeur, NBC also maintains touches of subtlety—such as the tiny possession indicator above each team’s score
In later CBS screenshots, you can see it indicated sometimes. When it shows "3rd & 7", that box will be filled with the team color of the team in possession. It's not a permanent box, though.
- Completely bland theme music.
- Half-witted former QB analysts (other than Romo).
- The worst studio show.
The other networks (particularly NBC) do a way better job.
The article's entire point is that the graphics were redesigned for more CBS-ness.
> It just looks like “CBS,” because it’s the same font the network uses to brand its news shows, comedies, and paint-by-numbers crime procedurals. The name of that font is TT Norms
[0] https://www.avclub.com/fox-redesigns-its-nfl-graphics-for-th...
* Nantz and Romo are by far the best broadcast crew
* NBC is old hat at this point. Nobody wants to listen to Collinsworth anymore
Is this true? I can't tell if he's being legit here or just running with a joke.
Funny he should mention that, because the CBS graphics look to me like Windows 11: flat, seemingly uniform, nicely subtly gradiented, but subtly inconsistent in an irritating, pebble-in-shoe kind of way.
