Hacker News Reader

Comment by teacup50 | Hacker News Reader

> Even Hacker News I have permanently zoomed to 125% and sometimes find it to be too small.

This is an issue of eyesight, a ridiculously high DPI without corresponding scaling, or both.

No, the grandparent comment resonates with me. I have good eyesight (when last tested, four years ago, it was better than 20:20) and use monitors with standard DPI on standard resolutions, and yet it suddenly strikes me that never in my life have I had to zoom out on a web page, and yet I frequently zoom in (including on Hacker News). Standard font sizes really are too small.

I don't zoom in most websites these days[0]

HN, Google, DDG and Wikipedia (the mobile version is nicer) are the ones I can't use without setting to 125%.

[0] An upside of the mobile first trend?

EDIT: Eh, scratch that. Just noticed Github (125%) and Twitter (110%) are also on the list ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not sure how much is age... I notice that reading my phone is often harder than desktop. I usually have a set of reading or computer glasses with me, but don't need them except for things that are close. Stuff on the phone always seems a bit small. Maybe there should be an effort to consult designers over 40 on some of these web sites/apps.

For Hacker News specifically: Verdana at 13px (12px for body text) was a fine choice at 72 dpi.

HN didn't exist in the 1990s, but its design principles are from that era. The look itself is a nice throwback, but the type size follows a technical constraint that no longer makes sense (it only made sense when CSS was nonexistent or very limited).

I really wish HN would change to at least PX for the spacing... similarly for margin space.

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