One note: in general there's a UX recommendation not to use flags when you mean languages. http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/
I'm not exactly sure the best way to solve this for your blog. Maybe something like adding alt-text to indicate "German Language" and adding a parenthetical to the end of titles "(German)" or something?
Maybe a combination: a small icon with the three flags in one row, and underneath, the text "German post".
this does not address the main problem that flags do not correspond to languages. German is spoken in more than "the three" countries, and in these countries there are more languages than German. Thus, using flags is insensitive and alienating to German speakers from other countries (e.g., Belgium), and non-German speakers from these three countries (e.g., Lugano).
And this is just for German! The situation is even more complicated for nearly all other languages in the world. Please, never use flags of states to identify languages. I have been on the receiving end of this unnecessarily offensive thing, and it did not feel nice.
In the case of your website, however, I don't see why you need to specify the language of each entry. Is it a sort of "warning" for non-english entries? It seems unnecessary. And why aren't entries in English marked with the flag of the USA? (or Canada, or South Africa).
The alternative is to use ISO (En, De, Es) in brackets before the text begins. i.e. [DE] Wie Studien verdreht werden
ISO language abbreviations would be a better alternative than the flags but I don't think anything is needed at all; anyone who knows German will recognize the post titles written in German and anyone who doesn't know it will still recognize that they're not in English.
The links do have `hreflang="de"` which in theory can programmatically indicate the language used at the destination, I'm not sure there's any technology that takes advantage of that. They could use a ::before pseudo-element with content: attributes(hreflang) to display the ISO code instead of the flag images. I would like to see `lang="de"` attributes on the German headings and paragraphs on the home page, they would tell screen readers to switch to a voice appropriate for the language when read aloud.
Do you think so?
Which flag would you use for euros? Obviously not the european union flag, since there are many countries inside the EU with a different currency (like Sweden or Poland) and even countries outside the EU whose currency is the euro (Montenegro, Kosovo, Andorra, ...).
I think the fact is that languages simply don't have visual symbols for them. They are spoken or written, not "looked at". Languages are linear, not 2-dimensional. Euros and Dollars have their symbol because that's what is printed on the 2D surface of bills.
If the context is currencies, everyone would know that a european union flag refers to the euro.
it's a visual cue, not a translation into hieroglyphics.
If you need a corresponding URI fragment, the ISO language codes exist for that reason.
Just from the title I can immediately see that "Die Metapher der Stadt für das Bauen und Betreiben von Softwareprodukten" is definitely not going to be in English.
I assume readers fluent in German don't need to be told that post is in German, the same way I don't need a little UK or US flag to know "March 2018 Book Recommendations" is in English.
If you can read the title and introduction you will immediately know which language its written in with no need for flags at all.
> Just the content, presented pleasently.
Please explain which part of my site isn't just the content, presented pleasantly?
> minimalism in look-and-feel, but also technically [...] weighs in at under 200 KiB
The exact page I linked to [0] weighs 160 KiB, less than your example. I'm confused about you bringing that up. I win?
I'm not the person you asked, so forgive my jumping in here, but I feel I have a helpful answer.
Design serves function. The function of a website with text is to be read. Your site's design is hard and unpleasant to read. Here's what made it difficult for me to parse and read your page:
1. The title looked like a banner offering a newsletter or cookie preferences. I ignored it. My eyes jumped to the subheadings "router" and "template". It took me too long to discern what I was reading. At first I thought it was a list of blog posts titled "router" and "template".
2. The white, thin text on black background was difficult to read. My astigmatism makes dark on light a strong preference for me. Light on dark can be okay if the font has enough weight to minimize deformation of the letter forms. Here you chose a very thin font.
3. The ragged left edge of each paragraph is harder to scan. The return sweep took longer. It is also reminiscent of poetry which felt out of place.
4. The bright background lines drew my eye in a downward on the right and upward on the left, further making the return sweep less comfortable. It is brighter than the text and nagging at my peripheral vision.
5. The text in the comment box was too low contrast to be comfortable.
6. The right menu was invisible to me until I was critically looking over the design.
It was very stylistic and striking. Aesthetically good. But these design choices are at odds with the functionality of reading, at least for me.
That's a problem with other sites though isn't it?
> My astigmatism makes dark on light a strong preference for me
You can find accessibility-enhancing browser extensions. I use one for the exact opposite myself, to turn bright sites into dark ones. Can't account for every disability.
> It is also reminiscent of poetry which felt out of place
Great! My site has lots of poetry. Not out of place at all.
> The text in the comment box was too low contrast to be comfortable
Thanks, I've suspected this to be the case. Will address.
I think of design as being done in a context. Few websites use green to indicate a toggle has been turned off and red to indicate a toggle has been turned on because most websites use green to indicate on or go and red to indicate off or stop. Websites are designed in that cultural context where that makes sense (there are cultures in which it's not those colors). I wouldn't expect for a website to buck that context and then say it was a problem with other websites and not the one that's deviating from norms.
Toast banners being colorful on white or black backgrounds is a design language I see all over the place. It's the context of the web. So when I encountered a colorful banner on a black field, my eyes ignored it (based on their experience elsewhere before I browsed to your site) and traveled elsewhere first. It was only when I became confused by the contents elsewhere did I take a second, closer look at the top and realized what I was reading.
Not a big deal really, but I wanted to share this one reader's experience with first impressions.
> You can find accessibility-enhancing browser extensions. I use one for the exact opposite myself, to turn bright sites into dark ones. Can't account for every disability.
No, you cannot. I don't expect sites to. I have a custom CSS I use to improve readability when it's low. But, I have noticed that many sites that are white text on dark backgrounds are reasonably readable when they choose fonts that have some weight to them. Face weight is the lever there. If you wanted to, you could increase the weight of your font a smidgen and provide a good experience to both people with astigmatism and people who prefer dark color schemes. But design choices are personal and you can keep it nice and thin too. Again, I was sharing my first impression on readability.
> Great! My site has lots of poetry. Not out of place at all.
Maybe it's not out of place, but I didn't see any poetry on that page. It was a colophon. If it was meant to be poetic, it went over my head. But, I am a mere student of poetry. Not a poet myself.
As I mentioned, I like the look of your site. I find some of the design choices to hinder readability which I value over aesthetics. Design is about finding that balance between aesthetics and functionality and not everyone agrees on where that balance should fall.
I was not the only one who found that some of the design choices distracted from the content or made the content harder to read. Now you know and can do or not do what you will with that information. But saying that your readers are "wrong" is an odd way to go about it.
The bar on the right also has two icons that doesn't seem to do anything (save, next).
Finally, as a non-native english speaker to another, I respectfully add that the tone of your comments come across as a bit confrontative, which together with seemingly strongly held opinions and seemingly not very open to feedback, makes me hesitant to engage in this discussion. Perhaps you are not aware of this, so I just wanted to in the most best-meaning manner I can point it out to you.
THIS is minimalism: https://manuel.kiessling.net
Precisely in the sense of "NOT a lot going on at all times". Just the content, presented pleasently.
And importantly, it's not only minimalism in look-and-feel, but also technically: even a long post with an embedded image like https://manuel.kiessling.net/2021/05/02/tutorial-react-singl... weighs in at under 200 KiB. Loads in under 3 seconds even on "slow 3G" in Chrome. 362 milliseconds via my office's wifi.
Also, no JavaScript. Nothing moves or jumps. Perfectly usable and consumable in a CLI browser like Lynx.
All of that without looking brutalist.