Not fully on topic but man do I still love (and use) Teletext on a daily basis. There are many things we (designers) can learn from it. The more stuff you can display the more you have to resist the temptation to do so. Early tech radically forced you to find creative ways to get to the core of what you were trying to achieve. Now with the abundance of memory and visual capabilities, nobody is carefully making choices anymore. Turning every UI into an overkill experience.
It’s something I try to push for when crafting new designs for startups at our firm.
Yeah, it's especially good for a quick news update because of the limitation to one page per article (not sure exactly how many characters you can fit in, but it's not a lot).
Just thinking about Teletext and its limitations got me so inspired, I just wrote some thoughts about why it's so amazing and how it should be a source of inspiration for product design in general: https://fairpixelsco.medium.com/teletext-when-less-was-more-...
My parents also still use teletext. Which I don't understand - they both have iPads and also use that for email, news, etc, but still use teletext on a daily basis.
I use it on my iPhone. It has a HN vibe. In a few seconds, no pictures, I get the main headlines. I've also noticed that the folks that write the Teletext headlines do so much more concise. They have limited characters, and need to get the main point across. So it also forces the writers to not add fluff, just get to the core of it.
Just overall, it lets me consume news much faster. No ads. no images, no fluff.
Someone I know uses it to check the result of football matches. They have the number memorized and just go straight to the page of interest. Pretty efficient.
Yes, I also know a lot of people (switzerland) who use it for sport results. It works well on the cellphone app and it's just do it's thing. No bs, just info.
Comments
Not fully on topic but man do I still love (and use) Teletext on a daily basis. There are many things we (designers) can learn from it. The more stuff you can display the more you have to resist the temptation to do so. Early tech radically forced you to find creative ways to get to the core of what you were trying to achieve. Now with the abundance of memory and visual capabilities, nobody is carefully making choices anymore. Turning every UI into an overkill experience.
It’s something I try to push for when crafting new designs for startups at our firm.
Yeah, it's especially good for a quick news update because of the limitation to one page per article (not sure exactly how many characters you can fit in, but it's not a lot).
Just thinking about Teletext and its limitations got me so inspired, I just wrote some thoughts about why it's so amazing and how it should be a source of inspiration for product design in general: https://fairpixelsco.medium.com/teletext-when-less-was-more-...
My parents also still use teletext. Which I don't understand - they both have iPads and also use that for email, news, etc, but still use teletext on a daily basis.
Can I ask you - why do you still use it?
I use it on my iPhone. It has a HN vibe. In a few seconds, no pictures, I get the main headlines. I've also noticed that the folks that write the Teletext headlines do so much more concise. They have limited characters, and need to get the main point across. So it also forces the writers to not add fluff, just get to the core of it.
Just overall, it lets me consume news much faster. No ads. no images, no fluff.
Someone I know uses it to check the result of football matches. They have the number memorized and just go straight to the page of interest. Pretty efficient.
Yes, I also know a lot of people (switzerland) who use it for sport results. It works well on the cellphone app and it's just do it's thing. No bs, just info.