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[-] boolean_sledgehammer@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

UI designer/developer here. One who works on features that facilitate reading.

Based on their writing style and the text highlighting habit, this person is likely dyslexic. I've helped create functions that facilitate this behavior, which is better suited as a mode that can be enabled manually. There are browser extensions that can do this sort of thing for you. I've worked on a lot of assistive reading features.

If this was set as a default behavior, most users would fucking riot. Most of them are using text highlighting for what this person doesn't want to do.

Edit - I think I need to emphasize that this is based on real data. A shit ton of it. These decisions aren't made based on vibes. If the user base is performing a specific action repeatedly, we're going to facilitate it. We can see what you all are doing. UI's aren't built around a bunch of conflicting edge cases based on anecdotes. If something performs a certain way, at least major applications, it's usually because a lot of direct observations and metrics have strongly indicated that this is the preferred approach.

Admittedly, sometimes business goals get in the way of that. But if those business goals we have to push get in the way of conversions, they get abandoned pretty quickly.

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

lots of people do it, not just people with dyslexia. it helps keep track of where you are when there are large blocks of text. also it usually raises contrast so I'm sure that helps some people even more.

[-] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

it helps keep track of where you are when there are large blocks of text

So does the edge of the window & mouse pointer.

also it usually raises contrast

If the contrast sucks, then the UI is already broken. There are accessibility standards for

If you're selecting merely to read, there's a good chance the text is too small, the lines too long without enough space, the contrast too low, and that would all be addressed by following common web accessibility standards. Good accessibility is good UI.

16px is commonly considered a good minimum text size for accessibility. When I outgrew thinking tiny text was cool, I standardized interfaces to render at least that size & found a vast improvement.

this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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