If the original author reads this; I found the combination of webkit anti-aliasing with a thin body weight to be instantly eye-strain-inducing, and the deliberate hiding of scroll bars even on non-mobile viewports made for a persistent sense of unease.
Came here to say this. Nearly unreadable without changing font-weight:400. Luckily it's not also scrolljacking or fixing headers or share buttons or some other crap.
This is one of my core 'why haven't we fixed this' frustrations with the web. Despite pre-dating social networks, blogging is stuck in its own kind of myspace era where authors have near complete control and proportional ignorance of how to present content, and every article is a surprise for the reader as to how it will look/feel/perform.
For such a simple thing as the written word, the inability to personalize to users basic reading needs is kinda bonkers and exemplary of how different the web has turned out from its intended use. Safari Reader View is alright but unavailable or cuts off on many sites like this one, and the RSS standards are sadly out of favor. Sigh
It's not the author's fault, directly – it's a problem with the platform (syrah.co). I upped the font-weight from 300 to 400 in Chrome dev tools, and everything was instantly better.
I'm the author of the post and I wrote the entire site's codebase (syrah.co), and I did all the design, so it's all on me. You're right, we will be fixing this in an update soon. Syrah is still in beta and we weren't quite expecting this to get as widely read as it's becoming, so hopefully you'll forgive the crappy formatting :)
Reader View / RSS also cuts off right before the tweet FYI.
EDIT: I was under the presumption that reader view used RSS, which it turns out it may not. Anyway, very good article with a lot of good facts, forgot to mention that in my slight rant about styling on the web above :)
Ha, completely fair and appreciate the feedback. I happen to like it the way it is, but the general consensus does not agree with me, so we'll fix it soon.
Wish I had a browser extension that changed any font weight lower than 400 to 400, any foreground color lighter than #e8e8e8 or so to #e8e8e8 and any background color darker than #101010 to #101010.
I turned on reader mode in Safari because that font was so bad. Also, I HATE when sites make me unable to zoom on mobile. The designer does not know better than the reader how the page should be viewed, let me zoom in so I can read your stupid skinny font.
Comments
If the original author reads this; I found the combination of webkit anti-aliasing with a thin body weight to be instantly eye-strain-inducing, and the deliberate hiding of scroll bars even on non-mobile viewports made for a persistent sense of unease.
Came here to say this. Nearly unreadable without changing font-weight:400. Luckily it's not also scrolljacking or fixing headers or share buttons or some other crap.
This is one of my core 'why haven't we fixed this' frustrations with the web. Despite pre-dating social networks, blogging is stuck in its own kind of myspace era where authors have near complete control and proportional ignorance of how to present content, and every article is a surprise for the reader as to how it will look/feel/perform.
For such a simple thing as the written word, the inability to personalize to users basic reading needs is kinda bonkers and exemplary of how different the web has turned out from its intended use. Safari Reader View is alright but unavailable or cuts off on many sites like this one, and the RSS standards are sadly out of favor. Sigh
It's not the author's fault, directly – it's a problem with the platform (syrah.co). I upped the font-weight from 300 to 400 in Chrome dev tools, and everything was instantly better.
I'd say the author is pretty directly responsible; he is the CEO and founder of the platform :-)
Personally I just switched to reader mode, but that's not actionable feedback.
I know, I'm the worst :( Thanks for the feedback :)
I'm the author of the post and I wrote the entire site's codebase (syrah.co), and I did all the design, so it's all on me. You're right, we will be fixing this in an update soon. Syrah is still in beta and we weren't quite expecting this to get as widely read as it's becoming, so hopefully you'll forgive the crappy formatting :)
Appreciate the feedback.
Reader View / RSS also cuts off right before the tweet FYI.
EDIT: I was under the presumption that reader view used RSS, which it turns out it may not. Anyway, very good article with a lot of good facts, forgot to mention that in my slight rant about styling on the web above :)
Ha, completely fair and appreciate the feedback. I happen to like it the way it is, but the general consensus does not agree with me, so we'll fix it soon.
Didn't know RSS worked at all, actually, as I definitely haven't written any code to support it. Thanks for the info.
Wish I had a browser extension that changed any font weight lower than 400 to 400, any foreground color lighter than #e8e8e8 or so to #e8e8e8 and any background color darker than #101010 to #101010.
I turned on reader mode in Safari because that font was so bad. Also, I HATE when sites make me unable to zoom on mobile. The designer does not know better than the reader how the page should be viewed, let me zoom in so I can read your stupid skinny font.
Reader mode seems to work fine on this blog.