The text boxes are too large on Askaboutmoney

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domainer222

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I'm only new here so probably shouldn't be complaining! I do have some experience as a designer. I am a member of domain forum NamePros and they narrowed the width of each post box (the box where the posts appear).

As it stands the content here appears right across of the width of the page, and it's harder to read.

If you see all the news sites like BBC, Rte etc the width of each post with the actual content is narrower.

The ideal with is probably the bloomberg width.

On NamePros they launched a whole load of stuff on the right-hand side of their forum, which had the effect of narrowing the post-width.

Hope this helps @Brendan Burgess !
 
domainer222 said:
On NamePros they launched a whole load of stuff on the right-hand side of their forum, which had the effect of narrowing the post-width.
Click to expand...

I don't think that look would work here. There would be more overhead in what we publish in the right hand frame, and to most people it would just be noise that would mean they have to scroll more to read the threads. It would also result in more relevant material ending up 'below the fold' which lowers click rates.

On larger wide-format screens where reading edge-to-edge can become an issue, it's easy to reduce the browser window size to what ever works for the reader.
 
Hi domainer

Interesting, I am reading a book at the moment and the page is very wide which does make it a bit difficult.
But I never found that difficulty on Askaboutmoney.

You are suggesting that this.

upload_2019-1-10_16-57-35.png


is easier to read than this:

BlackRock Inc. is cutting 3 percent of its global workforce, the largest reduction in its headcount since 2016.

The company will dismiss about 500 employees in the weeks ahead, according to an internal memo viewed by Bloomberg News. The memo didn’t specify which businesses will be most affected.

Asset managers are under pressure as volatility roils markets and investors have piled into funds with low fees. The industry is also deploying technology across its businesses to reduce costs. State Street Corp., the giant custody bank and asset manager, trimmed its senior management ranks by 15 percent starting Wednesday, Bloomberg reported. AQR Capital Management, the quant



Personally, I find the 6 lines of Askaboutmoney are easier than the 13 lines of Bloomberg more convenient. Especially if it's a long post, and I want to scroll up and review what they said.

I will see if it's easy to change the text box size on one of the forums as an experiment.
Brendan
 
You prefer this from NamePros

upload_2019-1-10_17-3-44.png


to how it would look on Askaboutmoney

With thousands of startups needing a name for their new company and many more existing businesses also branching out all the time and needing names for their new line of products and services it seems that brandable domains is one of the areas that could be very beneficial to domainers both old and new and deserves to be explored further.

Below are a few points of discussion to get this thread started, if I have left something important out please let me know so that it can be added to them. If you have any tips or advice about brandable domains please feel free to share them with the rest of us.


1-What is a brandable domain.

2-How many different types of brandable domains are there and is one type better than the others.

3-What makes a brandable domain stand out amongst thousands of others.

4-What is the optimum length for a brandable domain, how long can a brandable domain be and still qualify as being a good choice.

5-What types of brandable domains are most desired by startups and existing businesses.

6-What is the best way to find brandable domains.

7-What is the best way to sell brandable domains.


Attention Newbies: It's probably best to first hear what some of the more experienced domainers have to say about this subject before you consider getting any domains, and even then it's probably best to experiment with just a few domains at a time. You should be able to sell one domain and then use the proceeds from that sale to get more domains, if you cannot even sell one domain then you are doing something wrong and need to adjust your strategy. IMO
 
I still like reading books in hard/soft back format. Easy to navigate, easy flow, and once you find the right thread on AAM, it’s the same for me. Who needs all the pop up stuff, integrated images, etc. Easy to check unread posts, skim through the titles till you find the one you’re interested in, and hey presto, you’re in. Leave as is, it’s great.
 
One of the reasons that AAM uses the full length of the screen (on pages such as the main forum page) is that we switched off other Xenforo 'features' (noise) and sidebars such as "who is online" etc. The NamePros page has a sidebar.

I could probably change the text box size if people would prefer a smaller width.
 
I think the current set-up is clear, reads well and should be left alone If you want to get picky about width, you can drag the browser window around and reduce the overall window width and consequently the text box width.
 
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I much prefer the current format. Less noise and distractions. I come here to read the posts so would not like sidebars or anything else taking up screen space. On all the posts from Brendan above showing the different approaches, the AskAboutMoney one looks best in all cases imho. As has been pointed out, you can reduce the window size if you prefer narrower boxes.
 
Hi @Brendan Burgess , sorry for the delay.

Yes, Bloomberg or any of the news websites bbc, rte, medium seems to be the optimum width for the articles.

Personally NamePros is still a little bit wide for me, for the actual posts. I would like them to narrow them.

Paul Graham, Y Combinator has a website with some stunning essays on it. Google "Paul Graham articles" to find his site. He has the perfect width for his essays imho.

http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html

@Leo wrote:
"There would be more overhead in what we publish in the right hand frame, and to most people it would just be noise that would mean they have to scroll more to read the threads. It would also result in more relevant material ending up 'below the fold' which lowers click rates."

I agree it would be noise. Though I do like the most popular posts of the day/week/month on NamePros. That works for me though it is a bit "noisier" if I could put it like that.

But you could keep the clean look and make it more readable by simply eliminating the RHS.

I note urls are disabled on this forum but let's not go there :D
 
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I inserted a link into your post.

Here is an article by Paul Graham in our format.

I prefer ours, but that might be just a personal familiarity.

I know when I am quoting or re-reading posts, I don't want to scroll up too much. Wider text means less scrolling.

Brendan

Since the 1970s, economic inequality in the US has increased dramatically. And in particular, the rich have gotten a lot richer. Nearly everyone who writes about economic inequality says that it should be decreased.

I'm interested in this question because I was one of the founders of a company called Y Combinator that helps people start startups. Almost by definition, if a startup succeeds, its founders become rich. Which means by helping startup founders I've been helping to increase economic inequality. If economic inequality should be decreased, I shouldn't be helping founders. No one should be.

But that doesn't sound right. So have we just shown, by reductio ad absurdum, that it's false that economic inequality should be decreased? That doesn't sound right either. Surely it's bad that some people are born practically locked into poverty, while at the other extreme fund managers exploit loopholes to cut their income taxes in half.

The solution to this puzzle is to realize that economic inequality is not just one thing. It consists of some things that are bad, like kids with no chance of reaching their potential, and others that are good, like Larry Page and Sergey Brin starting the company you use to find things online.

If you want to understand economic inequality — and more importantly, if you actually want to fix the bad aspects of it — you have to tease apart the components. And yet the trend in nearly everything written about the subject is to do the opposite: to squash together all the aspects of economic inequality as if it were a single phenomenon.

Sometimes this is done for ideological reasons. Sometimes it's because the writer only has very high-level data and so draws conclusions from that, like the proverbial drunk who looks for his keys under the lamppost, instead of where he dropped them, because the light is better there. Sometimes it's because the writer doesn't understand critical aspects of inequality, like the role of technology in wealth creation. Much of the time, perhaps most of the time, writing about economic inequality combines all three.
 
So we have about 140 characters per line.

Studies would show that this is too long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length#Electronic_text

Electronic text
Screen reading poses additional challenges, making the adoption of traditional line length research to the digital format problematic.[8] Unlike printed text, writing for digital media must accommodate factors such as glare, flicker, and scrolling/paging.[9]

Legibility research specific to digital text has shown that, like with printed text, line length can affect reading speed. If lines are too long it is difficult for the reader to quickly return to the start of the next line (saccade) whereas if lines are too short more scrolling or paging will be required.[10] Researchers have suggested that that longer lines are better for quick scanning, while shorter lines are better for accuracy.[3] Longer lines would then be better suited for cases when the information will likely be scanned, while shorter lines would be appropriate when the information is meant to be read thoroughly.[3] One proposal advanced that, in order for on-screen text to have the best compromise between reading speed and comprehension, about 55 cpl should be used.[10] On the other hand, there have been studies indicating that digital text at 100 cpl can be read faster than text with lines of 25 characters, while retaining the same level of comprehension.[8]

Subjective factors also play a role in line length selection for digital text. One study has found that CPL had only small effects on readability, including factors of speed and comprehension; but when asked for preferences, 60% of respondents indicated a preference for either the shortest (35 CPL) or longest (95 CPL) lines used in the study. At the same time, 100% of respondents selected either one of these quantities as being the least desirable.[11]
 
It's funny, I do find the lines in those articles too wide.

I wonder if it's because they are long articles.

Most of the actual lines on askaboutmoney, are actually shorter.Or maybe it's the posts which are shorter?

As in this post.

But maybe we write this way because the line length is too long?


It's funny, I do find the lines in those articles too wide. I wonder if it's because they are long articles. Most of the actual lines on askaboutmoney, are actually shorter. Or maybe it's the posts which are shorter? As in this post. But maybe we write this way because the line length is too long?
 
Just noticed that Wikipedia is longer than Askaboutmoney - this is one line


The incident prompted international headlines and debate on an entertainer's right to express a political opinion from the stage and made the editorial section of The
 
Love the uncluttered presentation of AAM but domainer222 has a point. When I make the browser window smaller I read the text a lot quicker. Thanks for the tip!
 
Thanks @galwegian44 , interestingly I found a comment by Paul Graham (founder of YCombinator tech incubator and hackerspace and early investor in AirBnB et al.) on page width on his article website, and here it is:

####

"Why is the text on your site so narrow? It wastes screen space.

The aim of web design is not to use all available screen space. It is legibility. Text is most legible with no more than 70 characters per line."

####

As @Brendan Burgess was saying wikipedia is actually wider than AAM, I think if I was getting stuck into a thread here on AAM I'd make the browser box smaller.
 
You know what domainer, I completely see your point here! It does seem easier to read when you don't have to move your head from side to side to read wide sentences which span the width of the screen. So long as the blank space is not cluttered with noise that does look better to me alright.
 
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