To the author: please use a darker font. Preferably black.
I’m only in my 40’s, I don’t require glasses (yet) and I have to actively squint to read your site on mobile. Safari, iPhone.
I’m pretty sure you’re under the permitted contrast levels under WCAG.
Surprisingly only the headings (2.05) and links (3.72) fail the Firefox accessibility check, the body text is 5.74. But subjectively it seems worse and I definitely agree with you that the contrast is too low.
Contrast looks good for the text, but the font used has very thin lines. A thicker font would have been readable by itself. At 250% page zoom it's good enough, if you don't enable the browser built-in reader mode.
I wonder if it's because of the font-weight being decreased. If I disable the `font-weight` rule in Firefox's Inspector the text gets noticeably darker, but the contrast score doesn't change. Could be a bad interaction with anti-aliasing thin text that the contrast checker isn't able to pick up.
I'd say it looks pretty readable on android although I still wouldn't describe it as good. I wouldn't say I feel encouraged to squint. But possibly different antialiasing explains it.
I think the accessibility checks only take into account the text color, not the actual real world readability of given text which in this case is impossible to read because of the font weight.
The problem is less the color than the weight. If it was 500 rather than 300 it would be perfectly fine.
Safari’s reader mode is good for this. All you have to do is long press the icon on the left edge of the address bar.
LONG PRESS????!?! you legend. How does one find these things out.
Like this, by word of mouth. That’s how Apple has done UI design since they stopped printing paper manuals.
- ctrl-shift-. to show hidden files on macOS - pull down to see search box (iOS 18) - swipe from top right corner for flashlight button - swipe up from lower middle for home screen
Etc, etc
It's so intuitive, how could I have missed that?
Good old iOS and hidden features. Great discoverability. Long press those, swipe that, gesture this.
I have a gesture for whoever decided "find in page" should go under share.
> I have a gesture for whoever decided "find in page" should go under share.
You can also just type your search term into the normal address bar and there's an item at the bottom of the list for "on this page - find <search>". I'd never even seen the find-in-page button under share.
That would be so much better if Find in page was the first item not the last.
Not restricted to Apple, but TIL: Double-clicking on a word an keeping the second click pressed, then dragging, allows you to select per word instead of per character.
Long press is a shortcut, the longer way is to click on the icon beside the url and tap/click the enormous "reader mode" button.
That's what I've done for years.
Long pressing is much more pleasant.
I wish Apple would give us a hint rather than requiring us to chance upon this recommendation on HN.
That’s a nice use for AI - pop up hints when it sees you using the long way a few times.
The problem is Apple’s hints keep popping up even after you say no thanks or it’s fine.
So that’s why Reader mode sometimes shows up directly when I click on the icon, I must be long clicking it by accident.
cmd+shift+R for reader mode if you prefer a keyboard shortcut
Yes, it’s a great workaround but website owners should not make me do that.
I found this to be a common theme in web design a while back, and in part led to an experiment developing a newspaper/Pocket-like interface to reading HN. It's not perfect, but is easier on the eyes for reading... https://times.hntrends.net/story/47762864
Your feedback is noted! I'll darken it down a few nootches and test it on mobile. Thanks for the feedback
Please: Not "a few notches". All the way. Black. That is if you actually care if people read your posts.
I instinctively use Dark Reader on any page with a white background so I was genuinely surprised by your comment at first.
Completely agree with this comment. Had to cut / paste it into vim and q! when done, was getting a headache.
Even as a Vim user I find this completely overkill when you can just press the reader mode button on the browser.
document.querySelectorAll('p').forEach(p => p.style.color = 'black');
Use this command in the developer tools console to change the color.
I'm also pretty sure 14 points font is a bit outdated at this point, 16 should probably be a minimum with current screens. It's not as if screens aren't wide enough to fit bigger text.
That's good guidelines and all, but meanwhile you are posting it on a site with..
Haha I keep forgetting that. Fortunately the browser remembers my zoom settings per page. I'm pretty sure the font is now at 16 or something via repeated Cmd +.
Which is why Firefox has memorized that this site needs 170% zoom.
There’s a reason I have HN set to 200%
10 point at 96 dpi or with correctly applied scaling is very readable. But some toolkits like GTK have huge paddings for their widgets, so the text will be readable, but you’ll lose density.
I'm on my laptop and that font is too thin and too small. I'm in my mid 30's ;)
On my android phone it's perfectly legible. Moving my phone away it's only a tiny bit worse than HN.
Is this maybe a pixel density of iphone issue?
I wouldn't mind a darker and higher weight font though.
macOS/iOS Safari and Brave browsers have "Reader mode" . Chrome has a "Reading mode" but it's more cumbersome to use because it's buried in a side menu.
For desktop browsers, I also have a bookmarklet on the bookmarks bar with the following Javascript:
It doesn't darken the text on every webpage but it does work on this thread's article. (The Javascript code can probably be enhanced with more HTML heuristics to work on more webpages.)Some css files abuse !important so you might have to add that too:
The font is dark enough, yet the weight is too light. Hairline or ultrathin or something. It's eye straining.
>I don’t require glasses (yet)
One day try throwing a pair on you'll be surprised. The small thin font is causing this not the text contrast. This and low light scenarios are the first things to go.
> The small thin font is causing this not the text contrast.
Whatever causes it, I do wear glasses (and on a recent prescription too) and the text is still very hard to read.
+1
Firefox users: press F9 or C-A-R
F9 doesn't seem to do anything for me on Linux... Neither on the posted page nor on HN.
What is it supposed to do?
There is no mention of F9 on this support page either:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perf...
Am I missing something?
yeah reader mode it is, didn't know it's different on Linux than on Windows and the support article listing it is here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perf...
I assume they are trying to enable Reader mode which is Ctrl+Alt+R
According to http://web.archive.org/web/20260317212538/https://support.mo... its
F9 on Windows
Ctrl + Alt + R on Linux
Command + Option + R on macOS
(It uses JS to only show the one for your platform but with view source you can see it mentions all three of these different OSes.)
So I guess the first guy is a Windows user and you other two use Linux.
> (It uses JS to only show the one for your platform but with view source you can see it mentions all three of these different OSes.)
There is a dropdown at the top-right to select the platform - no need to view source.
Probably. When available, reader mode can also be activated by clicking the little "page with text" icon on the right of the address bar.
Reader mode?
Your iPhone has this cool feature called reader mode if you didn’t know.
As for mentioning WCAG - so what if it doesn’t adhere to those guidelines? It’s his personal website, he can do what he wants with it. Telling him you found it difficult to read properly is one thing but referencing WCAG as if this guy is bound somehow to modify his own aesthetic preference for generic accessibility reasons is laughable. Part of what continues to make the web good is differing personal tastes and unique website designs - it is stifling and monotonous to see the same looking shit on every site and it isn’t like there aren’t tools (like reader mode) for people who dislike another’s personal taste.
I don’t know, I got 140 upvotes on a nitpick so I think others agree with me it’s hard to read.
Didn't say it wasn't. I said invoking an accessibility standard when it comes to a guy's personal website is laughable because the way it was said implied he was compelled to change his site because some bureaucratic busybodies somewhere said he should. Unless you are a business or a government, most people aren't overly concerned about accessibility, nor should they be - especially if it comes about only through guilt tripping or insinuated threats.
Many here at HN find that site hard to read, not just the original commenter.
Why don't you just go tell the WCAG on him yourself?
The who?
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage.
As the author I certainly apreciate this feedback
This is not merely annoyance. This is usability failure.
This is the most broken rule in the history of time. Every thread
if I can't read TFA because of its formatting it isn't tangential
Worst case scenario you copy the text out. It's worth complaining sometimes, but yes it's tangential.
flying really close to the dropbox comment, sir
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