
How to Design for the Web in 2019 - cruxex
https://medium.com/commitlog/how-to-design-for-the-web-in-2019-a0be4d6702e2
======
jraph
I love the tone of the article.

Excerpt:

> Tip: Don’t serve the prompt to disable DNT on the guide that shows the users
> how to disable DNT as the conversion rate ends up being rather poor.

However, 4 unwarranted mentions of Brave (with affiliated links) and a big
link to download Brave at the top of the article?

Hell no, please download Firefox instead! (just had to counter-balance this
big advertisement on the HN front page).

edit: also, the original title is "How to Design for the Web in 2019"

~~~
uxcolumbo
> Hell no, please download Firefox instead!

My main browser is FF and secondary is Brave.

What's the problem with Brave - did I miss a memo?

~~~
jraph
I was just countering what I see as an obvious unwarranted advertisement for
Brave. I think it is our duty to counter such advertisements here on HN.

As for the problems I see with Brave, though that was not my point:

\- their business model, based on Basic Attention Tokens: "Basic Attention
Token radically improves the efficiency of digital advertising by creating a
new token that can be exchanged between publishers, advertisers, and users.".
Well, I don't want to improve the efficiency of digital advertising. Even the
name is telling. I do not want to sell my attention.

\- they are based on Chromium. I don't want this browser engine monopoly,
controlled by Google.

~~~
MockObject
Use Dissenter, a version of Brave, with all the BAT support removed.

[https://dissenter.com/](https://dissenter.com/)

~~~
jraph
I wrote "they are based on Chromium. I don't want this browser engine
monopoly, controlled by Google."

Why would I use a fork of Brave?

edit: From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_\(social_network\))

> Gab is an English-language social media website, launched publicly in 2017,
> known for its mainly far-right user base. The site has been described as
> "extremist friendly" or a "safe haven" for neo-Nazis, white supremacists,
> and the alt-right. The site allows its users to read and write multimedia
> messages of up to 3,000 characters, called "gabs". In financial filings, Gab
> stated that conservative, libertarian, nationalist and populist internet
> users were its target markets.

> Gab promotes itself as a vehicle for "free speech", "individual liberty",
> and "the free flow of information online"; these claims of free speech have
> been criticized by scholars as "merely a shield behind which its alt-right
> users hide" and "an echo chamber for right-leaning content dissemination".
> Gab primarily attracts far-right and alt-right users who have been banned
> from other social networks. A majority of Gab's users are white, a majority
> are male, and a majority are conservative. Antisemitism is a prominent part
> of the site's content and the platform itself has engaged in antisemitic
> commentary.

Well, not really interested (for context, Dissenter seems to be a browser
built to integrate the Gab social network).

~~~
MockObject
> Why would I use a fork of Brave?

Yes, that's true. But I wanted to let you know about a way to avoid BAT.

> Gab promotes itself as a vehicle for "free speech"... ... ...

I run Dissenter as my primary browser, but don't have a Gab account, so I pay
no attention to the comment feature. I just want a browser that blocks all the
things natively, and doesn't have BAT.

~~~
jraph
Good points! Sorry if my comment felt a bit harsh. I am probably a bit
overcautious in this thread.

------
archiepeach
I've decided to renounce the web after more than 7 years as a professional web
developer. My current plan is to see if I can transition to making Swift apps
for Apple devices instead.

This was partly triggered by the recent news that Google is taking aim at ad-
blockers in Chrome. I doubt I would have ever wanted to go into web
development if I knew what the web of 2019 would look like without ad-
blockers.

A couple things drew me to the web.

1\. You could write a site once, and it would work (pretty much) in any
browser.

2\. The dev experience of being able to instantly see changes was great.

3\. It was easier than app development.

After dipping into some recent WWDC videos, I was impressed to see how far app
development had come.

1\. With SwiftUI, you can learn once, and build apps for pretty much any Apple
device.

2\. The dev experience is great with instant live previews (in the beta
version of Mac OS Catalina).

3\. SwiftUI is very easy to reason about, particularly when coming from a
component-based architecture framework such as React or Angular.

At this point, waiting for an "app-like" experience for web apps feels a bit
like waiting for the year of the linux desktop.

Progressive Web Apps have come far, but they still have a long way to go,
particularly in "feeling" like a native app experience. When interruptible
animations are introduced, I'll give them another look.

For a long time, the web had the perception of a free and open democratiser,
but it's become completely commercialised. It's a petri dish for privacy
violations. Why has my ad-blocker stopped 18,000 trackers in the two months
since I've had it running?

I want to make tools, not marketing funnels. Apps that follow Apple's suit
will encrypt user data so that not even the app maker can view user data. When
was the last time you saw that on the web?

~~~
omarchowdhury
> At this point, waiting for an "app-like" experience for web apps feels a bit
> like waiting for the year of the linux desktop.

You should check out Webflow and Figma.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Why would you trust some corporation to look after your content into the
future. At least with Sketch I know I can continue to use the software after
my subscription expires. These companies are only one takeover away from
jacking up their prices or removing a little used feature that is crucial to
you.

~~~
omarchowdhury
It's called export.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'm not sure a crappy SVG file is going to cut it in the real world.

~~~
omarchowdhury
You're embarrassing yourself out of ignorance (and arrogance). Go export
something in Webflow and report back.

------
musicale
Use affiliate links and URL shorteners! People love it when they have no idea
where a link will take them, and it will surprise and delight them when they
discover it was an affiliate link!

------
boblebricoleur
Browsing the internet today is so exhausting.

I would add one more rule "make sure your user has to perform at least 37
clicks before accessing your ad riddled article"

~~~
jfengel
I find that most of the time, the ad-riddled article wasn't worth reading. The
number and intrusiveness of advertising grows in proportion to the desperation
of the author to make the most of what little time you're going to spend.

The Internet is exhausting because the Internet is exhausted. Good content is
hard, and there's less of it than you'd hope. The web gains perhaps a few
minutes worth of meaningful content per day, if that. And unless you
particularly enjoy being the one trying to ferret it out of the torrent, it's
better to let some other aggregator do it for you. Read that, then turn it off
and go do something else.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The number and intrusiveness of advertising grows in proportion to the
> desperation of the author to make the most of what little time you 're going
> to spend._

I have a rule of thumb that hasn't failed me for a decade now: the
trustworthiness of a source is inversely proportional to the amount of
advertising it puts up.

------
onefullclick
So he basically posted the same last year ([https://medium.com/s/silicon-
satire/how-to-design-for-the-mo...](https://medium.com/s/silicon-satire/how-
to-design-for-the-modern-web-52eaa926bae2)) without the Brave links.

~~~
caspervonb
The Medium editorial team kinda messed that one up, I gave permission because
I thought it was really funny that Medium was gonna feature me bashing on
Medium. Which it was but they kinda just made it dull and ruined the tone.

------
thehenster
> This one remains the most important principle and it’s not without reason.
> Well paid focus groups have shown that the very first thing a user wants to
> do when visiting your web site in their web browser is to install a mobile
> application.

_hangs head_

------
psychoslave
> To make Medium work, we log user data and share it with processors. To use
> Medium, you must agree to our Privacy Policy, including cookie policy.

LOL, meta-irony?

------
mmoez
The title is misleading but the article is a true masterpiece.

My only regret is that it was published on Medium who does implements almost
all the bad practices the article criticizes.

~~~
marcosdumay
It's an illustrated guide with real working examples!

------
JimWestergren
Can't even read it "Keep the story going. Sign up for an extra free read."

~~~
scottharveyco
I thought that was the joke until I read the comments here and realised there
was a full article and Medium actually blocks articles that way now.

------
ricardobeat
Why oh why is this being published on Medium? It does all of that and more.

~~~
geddy
I think that's sort of the point. The irony there just adds to the article.

------
tomglynch
Great article - poor execution.

Users win when the browser market is competitive. The article heavily promotes
Brave. Others to move to are Firefox, Opera and Min.

~~~
kmlx
“Users win when the browser market is competitive.”

i’ll get downvoted for this, but i simply don’t agree. i think users lose when
there are multiple browsers. my argument relies on a basic fact: one cannot
guarantee that a new website will work on all browsers without heavy amounts
of testing. as such, the battle of the browsers shouldn’t be around engines,
which simply duplicates code into different paradigms, instead it should be
around ideas.

imagine a world with a single browser: all websites work perfectly, while
implementing new tech would be a fierce competitive battle of ideas.

want newTechX implemented? then you’ll have to convince ms, goog and the rest
of the community in order to implement it.

users would get both the competitive advantage and a stable “runs anything
environment”, instead of the chaos of yesterday.

~~~
orpheline
> "[O]ne cannot guarantee that a new website will work on all browsers without
> heavy amounts of testing."

Then maybe all browsers should implement standards consistently. That's why we
have standards.

~~~
majewsky
Even if everyone implemented the same set of standards, there would still be
bugs. Considering the code size of browsers, I expect on the order of 10,000s
of bugs in each browser. Now that's not going to be a problem for a static
blog, but any sufficiently complex web application is bound to hit some of
those bugs.

------
saagarjha
> Many modern browsers these days support a HTTP header called DNT which
> stands for Do Not Track.

Note that Safari has already removed the Do Not Track header as websites began
using it as a way to fingerprint users.

------
gridlockd
This isn't so much about the "The Web" but about media outlets. None of the
websites I visit (directly) are anything like this.

The fun ends when I click a link to a media outlet. For some reason, most
outlets seem to follow this "design advice" unironically and to the letter. I
think my personal bounce rate is now well over 50%.

Granted, I'm not a "valuable customer" to these companies. I'm not going to
subscribe, I block ads/trackers, I'm not going to register a "free account",
I'm _definitely_ not going to install the app and of course I don't want to be
notified of anything, ever.

My question is: Who _is_? Who goes through all the trouble? All these
annoyances must be working somehow, to get those last 0,0001% of people who
actually care. It must have been A/B tested and found to be beneficial.

Therefore, there is no sense in lamenting it. It's like homeshopping - _you_
might think it is completely idiotic, but really it's just adapted perfectly
to its customers.

~~~
rchaud
No, many of these apply to web apps like e-commerce stores as well. Go to
amazon.ca or wayfair.ca and you'll be greeted with a "download our app"
persistent interstitial that promises "advanced features". BS.

They want you to install the app so they can silently get access to a laundry
list of permissions that a web browser would throw up dialog windows about.
There is no additional functionality on the app for the user, because you can
tell the "apps" serve the normal site in a webview wrapper.

------
jmalkin
Is it ironic that this is on medium, which is a great example of how not to
design for the web?

~~~
blunte
Does Medium have a team of people here to downvote anyone who points this out?
I've seen several comments like this one, and they're dead or nearly.

------
darepublic
Re the first point of this article I generally do not want to download the
mobile app for a website I like my browser just fine. It annoys me when I get
harassed to download the mobile app (Reddit)

------
menzoic
Dark Patterns 101 in 2019

------
josteink
> Tip: If you don’t have an actual mobile application, you can just get an
> intern to package your website in a webview with security disabled and ship
> that!

Wtf? What the fucking fuck? How on earth is this a tip?

If you don’t have an app which offers anything besides the website itself, why
bother with the app at all?

This type of app is the one I hate most of all and immediately lowers my
impression of any company.

What a pointless waste of everyone’s time.

------
blunte
Oh the irony of posting this via medium.com ...

------
seapunk
It's hilarious but I'm sure some people will think it's a compilation of good
pratices.

~~~
Alexander473
Yeah, the article is confusing for that matter.

------
dna_polymerase
Medium always have had a problem with shallow content. Now they decided to
completely screw their website and they are great at it. Stop posting on
Medium, please. There really can’t be an audience on that monstrosity of a
website, it’s just not worth posting there.

------
module0000
This article wins - because at the very bottom is a link to K & R's C
Programming Language book. Some people like cat pictures, memes, clever
saying, etc... I like links anything authored by Dennis Ritchie.

------
xtf
IMHO Wrong:

1\. Mobile App. The site has to work by itself. Else go PWA

2\. DNT. Respect Users decisions. Allow cookieless and JSless.

3\. See 2.

4\. See 2. + I would't disable adblock in the net, because it the main entry
for malware.

5\. Block Foreign. Expand as you understand the laws.

6\. Max Layout. Called Mobile First, and seams to be national behavior.
International pages sometimes look foreign to me. Use your screenspace wisely,
yes.

7\. Use Notifications. OK, but, see 8 and 9.

8\. Prompt User. Don't annoy users. If they are on the net, they know how it
regulary works, don't get of the standard behavior patterns.

9\. Allow Opt-out. Opt-In is the way to go, else maybe violates GDPR and other
laws.

10\. Use Javascript. Not all websites require Javascript, most yes, but not
all. Don't rely on it, especially impaired users will hat you for 'visually
correct' but not screenreader enabled. Use standards.

PS: Don't be an apple hipster. Was biased from the beginning, got confirmed.
But, read it.

~~~
gridlockd
The whole article is satire, but I can see how one might believe it isn't.
It's too real.

~~~
xtf
Then it got me there. And in respect to a satire, then it's a good one.
Reverse it and you have a more accurate Webdev '19 Article.

------
ourcat
Am I alone in finding it amusing that this article is on Medium, a site
designed for reading, yet decides to cover valuable screen space with fixed
headers and footers?

------
0x445442
Here's my rebuttal... Don't do almost everything the article says to do and
put your site behind a pay wall if you absolutely must monetize.

------
oliwarner
Medium instantly absorbed half the screen to demand I log in and use the app
were not lost.

I hope the irony is not lost on the author.

------
chrisweekly
Hilarious, and depressing, in ~equal measure.

------
lhousa
No one:

Medium: You read a lot. We like that. UPGRADE!

------
AlchemistCamp
This is well-disguised spam from a green user account who has never commented
on HN.

------
londons_explore
Poor title, nice article

------
IloveHN84
Looks like the LinkedIn website

------
rullopat
I'd suggest to delete as spam all the new links on Hacker News that are behind
a paywall or a mandatory sign-in.

------
SimeVidas
Am I the only one who got paywalled? You folks must not read Medium a lot :-D

------
fader
Hosting this article on Medium completely undermines it. This is what I see
when I open it: [https://i.postimg.cc/gk8SC8cT/pot-kettle-
black.png](https://i.postimg.cc/gk8SC8cT/pot-kettle-black.png)

~~~
ignoramous
See the same. I outlined it
[https://outline.com/sUNND9](https://outline.com/sUNND9)

~~~
MaxBarraclough
I'm seeing inline pop-up spam at the bottom of the Outline page.

Is that stupid idea a new one, or did I just not notice until now?

~~~
ignoramous
Not sure either. In fact, I didn't realise there was a popup until after you
pointed out.

