Read Me
readymag.com
readymag.com
The only interesting parts for me were the interactive elements. This is the same article except much easier to read: https://readymag.com/designs/1961839/
For me, there are only 2 things that would make an article better to read. 1. Better, more concise writing. 2. Interactivity
And if the goal is read through rate then perhaps this method will work (if only because people are more likely to scroll blindly through an article to see all the animations). But if the goal is education then sometimes boredom is what's needed.
TFA is called “read me”, which is a term many technical people connect with documentation. It starts of talking about Reader retention on the web and changes into a deep dive of what typography is and the history of web and digital typography.
Of course you are going to lose readers who expects an article about documentation, or readers who think this is a meta article about web content.
For content, where readers mostly come from within the web property, you can be more certain that readers will read the article because they trust the sender, not because the theme interest them and for such a medium, I think there is more room to play with introduction and themes.
We're drinking from thimbles and pissing Oceans.
A similar saying I've heard is 'it was a very long walk for a short drink'.
“Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.”
― Gustave Flaubert
Perversely I found the way it was presented made it very difficult to read.
Can someone point me to these mainstream LED displays? Are we talking about calculators, or were there 80x25 terminals that used LEDs?
(Also interesting fact... "LED" was displayed capitalized on my screen but copy-pasted as lowercase. Indeed, in the DOM, the text is "led". I'm extra confused as to why someone would do that!)
I think “LED” is in small-caps, which is correct for typographical purposes, but requires the underlying text to be lowercase.
Even the NYTimes has moved on from the all over the place interactive format for articles because it's not good for readability. If you are confident about your writing you should focus on the writing itself instead of trying to package it in all kinds of bells and whistles. It just signals insecurity.
Well I can't, because apparently my browser (iOS 10) isn't supported.
I wonder what advanced JS features the page is using, that are only available on the latest browsers.</snark>
All of this is crammed into a tiny column on the right side of the iPad I’m reading this on. When I start scrolling to read more it starts flickering and jittering because... this article is full of huge amounts of JavaScript doing shit whenever I scroll, and making it move super slow.
It also breaks Safari’s “reader view”. Which honestly is about where I usually say “okay does the first paragraph of this illegible piece of the modern web feel worth the next level of hoops I’m gonna have to jump through to read it”.
This is an article that does not want to be read.
I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion.
i honestly liked the design of the page, but readability was certainly not on focus here, which is just ironic.
What? Sixties?
Anyway, I've read a lot of materials about readability and some authors provide very different recommendations. A lot of subjective opinions that are supported by questionable researches. Perception of text changes and you simply cannot use the same methods evaluating people from different generations or cultures.
In USSR for example all books for children MUST BE printed using sans-serif fonts because some “scientists” decided that serif fonts are harder to read for kids.
Given others' comments here, I'm thankful.