

Stop developing for the 90% use case - tyre
http://gist.io/5561992

======
msutherl
It seems there's a bit of a fad of people using humanist serifs on minimal
websites about technical topics. I find this an interesting and somewhat
strange thing to do. The style of these typefaces dates to the early
Renaissance and emulates the script used in illuminated manuscripts. These
faces were also revived around the time of the Bauhaus and used in a similar
sort of minimal layout by people like Jan Tschichold, but in the context of
books and literature, which benefit from the association to the early history
of the printed word and the authoritative aesthetic of early Christianity.

Using such a typeface on such a technical website is for one totally
anachronistic, but also without any logic that I can discern. Moreover, that
particular font is somewhat hard to read and looks like it's wiggling its
serifs around as you eyes pass over the letters. Try something like Sabon if
you're going for that aesthetic.

~~~
kintamanimatt
Typefaces affect how people perceive content. Content presented in a serif
font appears to the reader to be more credible. [1]

It used to be the case that serif fonts were a no-no on VDUs because their low
resolution made serif fonts difficult to display and less readable. This
really hasn't been a problem for a long time, especially when the font size is
larger, as in this case.

I tend to find that dark text on a high contrast background "jumps" around
making it somewhat difficult to read for long stretches when I'm reading on my
computer or phone. You might want to play with the accessibility settings in
your browser to make plain white backgrounds a light gray and text a dark
gray. (I have my PDF reader set to display content like this and it's
infinitely more readable when I'm reading something that's several hundred
pages long!) Apparently impaired contrast sensitivity is common in dyslexics
[2], although I'm almost certain I'm not dyslexic! Dyslexics also have issues
with serif fonts, although this isn't an issue for me.

[1] [http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670556/are-some-fonts-more-
beli...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670556/are-some-fonts-more-believable-
than-others)

[2] [http://uxmovement.com/content/6-surprising-bad-practices-
tha...](http://uxmovement.com/content/6-surprising-bad-practices-that-hurt-
dyslexic-users/)

~~~
msutherl
I'm not sure if this is meant as a refutation or an orthogonal comment, but
yes, the typeface selected affects how people perceive content. Each typeface
has a history and certain associations. It is the job of a graphic designer to
align the history and associations of the typeface with the content.

This is not really an empirical matter. Serif type might make something appear
more credible, but this is only by association to other things that seem
credible. In this particular case, the association is to the early
Renaissance, and to some extent the early 20th century, which I think now both
have a somewhat mixed reputation when it comes to credibility.

~~~
kintamanimatt
> I'm not sure if this is meant as a refutation or an orthogonal comment

Neither. It was proffered as an explanation for the choice of typeface.

> Using such a typeface on such a technical website is for one totally
> anachronistic, _but also without any logic that I can discern._

~~~
msutherl
That would be a refutation then, to which I would reply that I can see why one
would choose a serif generally for this site – though I would not – but this
particular serif does not make much sense.

~~~
kintamanimatt
But I haven't refuted anything you've said! The typeface's anachronism in part
likely supports its air of credibility.

------
hasenj
I don't quite get his message, it contains things which I see as
contradictions.

He uses "Square" as an example of doing it right. I have no idea what square
is, but quoting the article:

> Square processes payments. They don't handle group payments, they won't auto
> pay your bills, and they have no presence online to compete with PayPal.

A payment service that doesn't handle all the use cases of payment? Isn't this
exactly what he's saying you shouldn't do? Yet he quotes it as an example of
doing things right?

I don't get it.

~~~
tyre
Square is not trying to handle every use case for payments. They said "Hey, it
is a pain in the ass to pay people with credit cards in person." So they
solved that. And they solved every part of it – the merchant relations, the
design and functionality of their app, the pricing, the backend architecture,
the card reader, security – extremely well.

They are not trying to handle "all the use cases of payment", and I'm saying
that they should not move into any other type of payments until their product
is as good as they can make it. And they don't, on purpose, because they don't
want to solve 90% of 10 different aspects of payment. They solve 1, 100%.

~~~
hasenj
Thanks for the clarification.

------
mirkules
There is a certain irony in requiring Javascript to view a post about not
ignoring the 10% of the use cases.

~~~
rodion_89
According to Yahoo 99% of visitors have JavaScript enabled.

[http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-
javascript-d...](http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-javascript-
disabled-14121.html)

~~~
vacri
Yahoo's audience: general public

This article's audience: software developers

Given that the article is in English as well, and English countries have
higher levels of disabled javascript than other countries from that report,
and that the target audience is a very specific type of technical focus rather
than the general public, I'd hazard that the original point stands.

Not to mention that if some crawlers don't access javascript, you'll serve up
nothing to the relevant search index.

~~~
gfodor
You'll hazard that 1 out of 10 people accessing this webpage have Javascript
disabled?

~~~
yareally
I disable it for sites that abuse javascript. I'm guessing I am not the only
one that does. Probably quite a few people would do that outside of us
developers if they knew they could (or knew the a site's major problem was
derived from it). Not inferring anything about this particular site, just that
there's good reasons to turn it off at times.

I normally browse with it on by default though, but I'll blacklist it for
sites that cause my browser to slow down or do other things that are
detrimental to the user experience.

------
bcoates
He TLDRed when he should have BLUFed:

"As a user, I complain about things that don't exist (sorry), but I almost
never leave a service that is solving one of my needs – no matter how small –
well."

In other words, customers don't want features, they have problems, and a
product that wholly solves more than zero problems gets sales.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Agree - came to post that last paragraph too.

Succinct and clear - unlike the rest if the article which I guess he had to
write before understanding enough to write the last para

------
drivingmenuts
Is it just me or does it seem like half this article is missing? Maybe I'm
just having a stupid day.

------
andrelaszlo
Working link:

<https://gist.github.com/tyre/5561992>

------
kaze
I agree with the central message in this article. Think of the pleasure and
certainty associated with the small, well written UNIX tools. Apply that to
products.

~~~
chas
Corollary: think of the pain of looking up all of the flags get some UNIX
tools to do what you want. Apply that to products too.

------
chacham15
Wheres the pgbot when you need him? Oh well, I'll take his place: "It’s better
to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy."

~~~
ksherlock
"A little bit for everybody is a lot for nobody"

------
bwang29
Things initially developed for a particular small group of people usually have
the potential to affect non-targeted users. The dilemma here seems to be
whether you want such group of people to give you financial incentives for
building something.

------
vxNsr
Well said.

I'd also like to add that often developing for the 99% will end up benefiting
the 90% also in ways that weren't immediately apparent when you were only
going for that 90%.

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dbenhur
The article in a twitter size synopsis:

    
    
      0.90 ** 4 => 0.6561

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michaelbuddy
Some real wisdom in this article. Not really.

