You are reading a single comment by @Velocio and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Velocio
So one thing that has really occurred to me since getting an iPhone and an Android and spending time downloading apps and surfing the web... we've got it wrong.
What I mean by that is that I never got why apps existed because very few utilise enough of the phones functionality that they would need to be an application rather than a website.
I get it now. We use apps because they are simple, and they strip away un-needed crap, and they are instantly available.
So basically... we use apps because web design let us down. The web page is now cluttered with so much crap that isn't needed that we opt to use apps to simplify the experience and to make things easier.
With that in mind, the next version LFGSS is going to be an exercise in removing things.
Example... horizontal rule between posts... why? An image indicating whether a post is new, is there not a better way to do this that doesn't require downloading an image? Avatars, could we consider removing them and would it improve the experience... if not, maybe we should use inline images in the HTML to reduce the number of downloads and increase the page rendering speed? Typography, is this text as easy to read as it could be? Embedded links to other sites, are video embeds needed? Could we simplify how they're present?
And that's before we consider the overhaul to the header and footer to include nothing more than is needed.
I get it now... the web experience should be the lightest, faster and most simple experience possible. Elegantly stream-lined. And if it is that... then an app shouldn't be needed. But whilst LFGSS continues to be a pretty complex web app the need for a mobile interface or even for apps exists.
So instead of creating mobile interfaces and apps... I'm going to focus on massively simplifying the web site itself.