
I tried to read "Bind the GAP": https://bindthegap.news/issues.html but the colours, fonts, and layout are so disorienting that I'm afraid it is just too much work to make much sense of it. Am I just too old-fashioned in my expectations, or do others alos find that the festive artwork completely overwhelms the content in this publication? If there's anyone on this list who's involved in producing the publication, please consider drastically dialing back the decorations. -- Viktor.

I don't think I quite understand the purpose of sending this
message. BtG is not a community project, the contact info of the
authors is very easy to find, and it is far too easy to interpret
the mail as an opinionated rant about design choices.
If you are interested in changing their concept (which,
personally, I'd be sad to see happening), why not contact the
authors?
Viktor Dukhovni
I tried to read "Bind the GAP":
https://bindthegap.news/issues.html
but the colours, fonts, and layout are so disorienting that I'm afraid it is just too much work to make much sense of it.
Am I just too old-fashioned in my expectations, or do others alos find that the festive artwork completely overwhelms the content in this publication?
If there's anyone on this list who's involved in producing the publication, please consider drastically dialing back the decorations.
-- Albert Krewinkel GPG: 8eed e3e2 e8c5 6f18 81fe e836 388d c0b2 1f63 1124

On Jan 19, 2021, at 4:51 PM, Albert Krewinkel
wrote: I don't think I quite understand the purpose of sending this message. BtG is not a community project, the contact info of the authors is very easy to find, and it is far too easy to interpret the mail as an opinionated rant about design choices.
If you are interested in changing their concept (which, personally, I'd be sad to see happening), why not contact the authors?
Well, as stated, I was wondering whether in fact it was just me, or whether perhaps others potentially interested in reading the content were deterred by the design. Perhaps there's indeed an audience for the chosen design... -- Viktor.

Le 19/01/2021 à 19:55, Viktor Dukhovni a écrit :
I was wondering whether in fact it was just me, or whether perhaps others potentially interested in reading the content were deterred by the design.
Actually, I was disturbed as well. But my glasses are inadequate... 1. But I didn't react.... 2. I think that public complaining that a site design is imperfect is not efficient. 3. *But I think also that people who attack those who complain, are even worse!* 4. *And those (as myself) who complain that the authors' defenders,who criticize the critics (2), are senseless, and awful, are simply hopeless...!!* Please continue this ping-pong, we have nothing better to do. Jerzy Karczmarczuk /Caen, France. The departure place of one William the Conqueror, who didn't like some anglo-saxons, and decided to implement some polite criticism/. -- L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par le logiciel antivirus Avast. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

It's not just you; however, I have to admit I didn't know about GAP at all until you brought it up.
On 19 Jan 2021, at 19:55, Viktor Dukhovni
wrote: On Jan 19, 2021, at 4:51 PM, Albert Krewinkel
wrote: I don't think I quite understand the purpose of sending this message. BtG is not a community project, the contact info of the authors is very easy to find, and it is far too easy to interpret the mail as an opinionated rant about design choices.
If you are interested in changing their concept (which, personally, I'd be sad to see happening), why not contact the authors?
Well, as stated, I was wondering whether in fact it was just me, or whether perhaps others potentially interested in reading the content were deterred by the design. Perhaps there's indeed an audience for the chosen design...
-- Viktor.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.

The editors of BtG appear to quite deliberately take a bold step away from the "normal" design styles people use when writing about Haskell. When someone is doing something a bit different, it might be worth being a bit more careful, concrete, and kind with feedback than usual. Recall that we almost didn't have Advent of Haskell 2020: the announcements derailed into arguments about the absence of an RSS feed and the organisers nearly threw it in.
In the spirit of the above, I'd suggest something like this to the authors:
- I really liked the overall content. It clearly took a lot of effort to collect, they managed to organise some really great authors, and there's stuff in there for different skill levels. Congratulations.
- The "fun" in the design is not _personally_ my style, and I do find it a little hard to get through. The good news is that the loudest stuff is mostly done outside and between articles, rather than inline. I like this because they get to have fun with the design, and I can read the articles.
- There are a few places where the fun makes the text harder to read (Rank'n'Roll, some of the callouts in the Dependent Types article)
- Some pages are difficult to read due to low contrast between text and background. Lightweight fonts can make this harder, too. (Examples: Pure Gold (p27) and Deriving All The Way (p13,14) (the body is easier to read than Pure Gold, but the lightweight song text I found tough).)
Suggestions:
- Select a standard font/size/weight for most article body text.
- Check text vs. background colours using something like https://contrastchecker.com/ . WCAG AAA is more than just text contrast, but this is an easy and objective check.
- Check the designs of callout boxes for readability. If using underlaid images, consider making them more subtle, or think about switching to solid blocks of colour with themed doodads on the edges. (Good example: p9 has easy-to-read callouts.)
HTH,
-- Jack
January 20, 2021 6:43 AM, "MigMit"
It's not just you; however, I have to admit I didn't know about GAP at all until you brought it up.
On 19 Jan 2021, at 19:55, Viktor Dukhovni
wrote: On Jan 19, 2021, at 4:51 PM, Albert Krewinkel
wrote: I don't think I quite understand the purpose of sending this message. BtG is not a community project, the contact info of the authors is very easy to find, and it is far too easy to interpret the mail as an opinionated rant about design choices.
If you are interested in changing their concept (which, personally, I'd be sad to see happening), why not contact the authors?
Well, as stated, I was wondering whether in fact it was just me, or whether perhaps others potentially interested in reading the content were deterred by the design. Perhaps there's indeed an audience for the chosen design...
-- Viktor.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.

I believe that it's important to chime in: 1. I support Haskell content in any form 2. I have experienced physiological response to the first issue of GAP, so I couldn't read it (headache) 3. It probably can mitigated by simply providing text source of the articles. The Internet is for text after all. — Kindest regards, ¬Σ On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 9:34 PM Jack Kelly via Haskell-Cafe < haskell-cafe@haskell.org> wrote:
The editors of BtG appear to quite deliberately take a bold step away from the "normal" design styles people use when writing about Haskell. When someone is doing something a bit different, it might be worth being a bit more careful, concrete, and kind with feedback than usual. Recall that we almost didn't have Advent of Haskell 2020: the announcements derailed into arguments about the absence of an RSS feed and the organisers nearly threw it in.
In the spirit of the above, I'd suggest something like this to the authors:
- I really liked the overall content. It clearly took a lot of effort to collect, they managed to organise some really great authors, and there's stuff in there for different skill levels. Congratulations. - The "fun" in the design is not _personally_ my style, and I do find it a little hard to get through. The good news is that the loudest stuff is mostly done outside and between articles, rather than inline. I like this because they get to have fun with the design, and I can read the articles. - There are a few places where the fun makes the text harder to read (Rank'n'Roll, some of the callouts in the Dependent Types article) - Some pages are difficult to read due to low contrast between text and background. Lightweight fonts can make this harder, too. (Examples: Pure Gold (p27) and Deriving All The Way (p13,14) (the body is easier to read than Pure Gold, but the lightweight song text I found tough).)
Suggestions:
- Select a standard font/size/weight for most article body text. - Check text vs. background colours using something like https://contrastchecker.com/ . WCAG AAA is more than just text contrast, but this is an easy and objective check. - Check the designs of callout boxes for readability. If using underlaid images, consider making them more subtle, or think about switching to solid blocks of colour with themed doodads on the edges. (Good example: p9 has easy-to-read callouts.)
HTH,
-- Jack
January 20, 2021 6:43 AM, "MigMit"
wrote: It's not just you; however, I have to admit I didn't know about GAP at all until you brought it up.
On 19 Jan 2021, at 19:55, Viktor Dukhovni
wrote: On Jan 19, 2021, at 4:51 PM, Albert Krewinkel < albert+haskell@zeitkraut.de> wrote:
I don't think I quite understand the purpose of sending this message. BtG is not a community project, the contact info of the authors is very easy to find, and it is far too easy to interpret the mail as an opinionated rant about design choices.
If you are interested in changing their concept (which, personally, I'd be sad to see happening), why not contact the authors?
Well, as stated, I was wondering whether in fact it was just me, or whether perhaps others potentially interested in reading the content were deterred by the design. Perhaps there's indeed an audience for the chosen design...
-- Viktor.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.
Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.

On Tue, Jan 19 2021 16:55, Viktor Dukhovni wrote:
Well, as stated, I was wondering whether in fact it was just me, or whether perhaps others potentially interested in reading the content were deterred by the design. Perhaps there's indeed an audience for the chosen design...
For what it's worth, I didn't think it was very hard to read overall. Some parts—especially ones with a picture directly underneath the text—were a little bit annoying, but that only happened a few times throughout the issue. It was a very different style from what you normally read, for sure, but I found the whole concept to be absolutely delightful and distinctly remember it lifting my spirits over Christmas. I think Richard said it best in his reply: On Tue, Jan 19 2021 18:52, Richard Eisenberg wrote:
Given the amount of "old-fashioned"-styled Haskell content out there already, perhaps having some with a different look will appeal to new audiences, which is surely good for all of us.

The authors, Dmitrii Kovanikov and Veronika Romashkina, are listed prominently on the bindthegap.news website. It might be more effective to contact them directly -- and perhaps kindly offer to help edit and review their free publication -- than to complain generally and in public. Given the amount of "old-fashioned"-styled Haskell content out there already, perhaps having some with a different look will appeal to new audiences, which is surely good for all of us. Richard
On Jan 19, 2021, at 12:29 PM, Viktor Dukhovni
wrote: I tried to read "Bind the GAP":
https://bindthegap.news/issues.html
but the colours, fonts, and layout are so disorienting that I'm afraid it is just too much work to make much sense of it.
Am I just too old-fashioned in my expectations, or do others alos find that the festive artwork completely overwhelms the content in this publication?
If there's anyone on this list who's involved in producing the publication, please consider drastically dialing back the decorations.
-- Viktor.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.

Il 19 gennaio 2021 alle 15:29 Viktor Dukhovni ha scritto:
I tried to read "Bind the GAP":
https://bindthegap.news/issues.html
but the colours, fonts, and layout are so disorienting that I'm afraid it is just too much work to make much sense of it.
I redownloaded the issue to check: the font of the body is mostly a quite conservative, serif one.

I love their fancy style! I hope they don't get reverted to some
"old-fashioned" style like the 00's (I've had enough of it) and carry on
with the novelty. Rather, I think the Haskell community needs even more
diverse graphic design.
2021年1月20日(水) 2:29 Viktor Dukhovni
I tried to read "Bind the GAP":
https://bindthegap.news/issues.html
but the colours, fonts, and layout are so disorienting that I'm afraid it is just too much work to make much sense of it.
Am I just too old-fashioned in my expectations, or do others alos find that the festive artwork completely overwhelms the content in this publication?
If there's anyone on this list who's involved in producing the publication, please consider drastically dialing back the decorations.
-- Viktor.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.
participants (10)
-
Albert Krewinkel
-
Francesco Ariis
-
Fumiaki Kinoshita
-
jack@jackkelly.name
-
Jerzy Karczmarczuk
-
Jonn Mostovoy
-
MigMit
-
Richard Eisenberg
-
Tony Zorman
-
Viktor Dukhovni