The text espouses a lovely idea, but it seems to be talking about practises that died about a decade ago now.

Nobody does build progressively enhanced websites anymore, its an all or nothing mess of the latest javascript memes and nightly-build browser features.

I really wish sites did fall back to just showing basic content when confronted with an odd browser but it just doesn't happen, browsing the web on my Kindle gets kinda painful outside of HN. The pixel perfect stranglehold designers seem to have on websites is still in place, they are insistent on building "experiences" exact to their specifications instead of just providing information in whatever way works best at the moment.

Distracting type, and horrible font size. Really difficult to read on laptop.

What can I possibly learn about web design from someone who can't even have the font display at a reasonable size? Please fix this. You shouldn't have to zoom in / zoom out for your website to be usable to people with perfectly fine eyesight.

I find complaints about "big font" bizarro. It's made so that a reasonable amount of letters/words fits on each row, the same as its the norm for ages in print and elsewhere.

Obviously the bigger you can get the font AND keep that property, the better.

Are you reading from a mobile device perchance? I expect it would look fine on one.

But I can assure you, it does not look fine on the desktop. I have literally one header and a four sentence paragraph on my screen right now.

No, a desktop (well, laptop) hooked to a 24" UHD screen.

It shows a header and ~3 paragraphs.

If you want a "reasonable amount of letters/words fits on each row", then make the column smaller. Don't compare this to print - no even semi-mainstream printed publication or book has type this large.

On desktop, the type on this site is unreasonably large. It is considerably larger than any other website that has long form content. It is extremely uncomfortable to read on my 13" MacBook Pro (which is a fairly common laptop/screen size).

Thankfully Safari gives me a 'Reader' version that's much easier to read. Compare the Reader version https://imgur.com/a/gs00JWD to the original version https://imgur.com/a/Waob1VZ

The font size for the body text on that site is 40px on my monitor and 35px on the laptop screen. That would be large for top-level headers. 16-18px Arial is just about the perfect size for primary text on any screen. It was a little excessive on 800x600 CRTs in the '90s, but not by much.

There are some nicer fonts than Arial/Helvetica out there, and I'd say the author used one of them here. The text looks really good at 18-20px, which is about the same size as 16-18px Arial.

I can't understand how so many "experts" are constantly screwing this up so badly. Some of the worst offenders are web design and typography bloggers.

Right, but you also have to mindful of how many rows are on a single page (or, in the case of the web, in the viewport). When I have to scroll after every paragraph, I find it a) harder to pay attention b) more strenuous on my eyes.

That being said, it's fine at about 50%, and so far, the content is really interesting!

Can't read it, font is way too big

What's the proper way to read this?

The font is gorgeous but also massive.

I feel like I'm reading on my kindle with the font size accidentally turned up to max...

2.5em fonts on a 32" screen...

nope

From a mobile perspective, this site is beautiful. 1) renders beautifully, easy font size to read 2) offline access, so I can read it whenever 3) gave me the option to add to home screen, which when selected, opens in its own native app.

Can't speak for the content yet, but the experience so far is amazing.

Are you sure that app is native? Sounds more like a PWA and since they have a Service Worker [1] I am convinced that what you are seeing is not a 'native' app, but if it feels like one thats just fine :D

From a desktop user perspective (1920x1080) I think the font-size would be better readable at about 60%.

[1]: https://resilientwebdesign.com/serviceworker.js

It is a shame people here can't get past the font size because it is a really well written and interesting book. Just zoom it down to the desired size and enjoy.

> This is a web book, designed to be read on the web (with or without an internet connection).

I'm not usually one to complain about free content, but with a fontsize like that it was designed to be read across the street from the web. I couldn't make it through the intro page.

I feel like this was designed to be read on a smartphone. I find it uncomfortable reading this on my 15" laptop screen. That aside, content looks interesting.

It's not too bad if you zoom out a bit. I don't know why they made the type so large.

Layout is reasonable on my phone, but the type is so distracting...

Or to be resilient to reading.

I hate to be the one to comment on form instead of content...

But a body text of "2.5 em" is literally unreadable. Anyone trying to talk about web design, while using letters that are 2.5^2 = 6.25 times larger by area than normal, I can't take seriously enough to even begin to read.

It's hard to take a book about web design so seriously when its so poorly designed itself. Right off the bat, the author(?) demonstrates they not up to the job to talk about such a topic.

Oddly enough, I find it quite pleasant. I'm on a 27" 2560x1440 monitor, and it's really easy to sit back in my chair and read this comfortably in my usual window setup (which is 1/3 web browser, 2/3 terminal, or so)

Edit: ok, at full width on this screen, it looks ridiculous. Definitely works better in a vertically-oriented window.

+9000 like seriously, I get it's mobile "friendly" design, but seriously being unable to display a nav/menu with only 10 items in fullscreen on a 23" 1080p display is the perfect example of a bad UI/UX.

The large font size isn't even to be "mobile friendly" - the site uses media queries to give mobile viewports specific styles.

I wonder what's the point of this trend... the only thing I can think of is the "looks good on my machine" and the mac/retina display resolution maybe? not a mac user so idk... I usually get mockups/prototypes bigger than it should because the designer eyeballed it on his/her machine

Unreadable for me on a MacPro and an iPad. It's not Apple related.

Definitely does not read well from a mac.

if you get the pdf, it is a bit better... mainly because the pdf renders the page narrower so it ends up smaller.

But kind of ironic that a book on web design fundamentally fails on web design.

The lack of information density in a so called "web book" is irksome

Information density isn't the problem (webpages can scroll), but the readability simply isn't very good.