I’m closer to senior citizen than middle age, and I need to Zoom down to 80% at least to not get a headache and attempt to read something.
There has to be a reason why this is the norm now, and I don’t think it’s because of decreasing vision.
This has taken the joy of internet surfing from me.
EDIT: I appreciate the help with how to fix it as well! But I mostly want to hear WHY.
In: Technology
Can you provide some examples of what you’re talking about?
Websites are designed to be responsive now so they format to the scale of your device. If they seem too big or too small you either need to be adjusting settings or using a different device.
Do you have some global zoom or accessibility settings configured on whatever device you’re using to browse the internet that you might not know about?
I can’t think of a single example of a website that I would consider to be “massive” – if anything I would say it’s the exact opposite where everything has been minimized due to larger resolution devices and more real-estate to utilize.
I never noticed that it’s that bad, do you have an example?
Maybe it’s an issue of how the websites are made, because if done correctly it should automatically scale according to the device/screen you’re using
For me it’s only too small on my computer because I’m using an ultra wide screen now and my eyesight is really bad 😅
For wide displays it’s usually much smaller than for narrow ones
1) massive increases in home networking speeds. Where before there was some attempt to make websites not push massive content due to poor network speeds, pages are now hundreds of megs and making hundreds of connections to download content, because;
2) developers are extremely lazy. Instead of a simple interface they download huge component packages to use one function that shows the date, but includes 49 mb of multi language packs, rendering components, and other garbage they don’t use, all to save twenty minutes of work, because;
3) website managers don’t give a crap about the customer at all, because;
4) 90% of the traffic is advertising dynamically rendering content all over which causes six page refreshes while you’re reading, advertising video downloading, google popups, popups for crap you don’t care about, and a hundred ad tracking cookies that somehow need 40 mb of script attachments to watch a video about a car you will never buy.
And that’s why you cannot get content sized so you can read it, because the content is just something to list it in google with SEO so you can watch advertising. You’re not meant to actually read it.
Increase text size on your phone or if using a PC get a bigger monitor and/or play with the scaling
Terminology wise, it sounds like you’re saying you have to zoom out to the 80% mark because at least some parts of the websites you visit are set so large that only a small portion of the content takes up the whole screen.
I don’t know of a good reason this web design has been chosen, aside from what I’ve seen in other comments that the website owners are looking for ways to trigger more ad views. I have seen a similar presentation on one of my favorite sites as well, and the owners presented that it was a huge redesign they did and they were all happy with it.
Psychological trick to keep the end user on the webpage for longer, to see more ads, and it makes ads harder to differentiate from actual page content. This leads to a psychological manipulation that can lead to end users clicking on ads thinking they’re ways to view more of the content. In the end, it’s all about generating profits.
Can you elaborate further on what you mean as your replies seem to be all over the place as to what your problem actually is.
Mostly correct — but the situation is that the pages are set up so you see virtually nothing of use on your screen, forcing you to scroll down to see if what you’re looking for is even there. It’s a tease.
I’m sure it’s by design and that the companies are happy with it. I the consumer is not. They’re appropriating my time. What took one click to read 10 years ago now takes four.
I think it’s mostly news/blog sites doing that thing of squeezing in 3 lines of text in the middle of ads like your screenshot. They do that because they’re desperate for ad revenue at the expense of having good content.
You definitely can’t always escape it but in general you’ll see less of that by picking high quality article sites and/or buying a subscription. You can also install an adblocker or try reader mode on your phone.
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