Mastodawn

Michael Lewis Aug 19, 2023

#searchmysite redesign just launched thanks to its first major open source contributor: https://blog.searchmysite.net/posts/introducing-the-redesign-and-first-major-open-source-contributor/

Introducing the redesign and first major open source contributor

The searchmysite.net redesign has been launched, thanks to its first major open source contributor Lucas Gramajo.

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Ayush Agarwal Aug 19, 2023

@michaellewis Hi, I'm sorry if I sound negative but I'd say that I preferred the older design.

It looks the redesign introduced icon fonts on the website which not only expects that the user will download those icon fonts (which is unnecessary), if the user blocks those icon fonts, the website appears "broken". I've attached an image that highlights this issue.

The change on font weights when hovering on elements also introduces subtle layout shifts on the website. I've attached a video recording that shows this issue.

The information density on a page also seems to have been reduced significantly. I don't remember how many hyperlinks per page were displayed in the older design but I have to click through multiple pages to see search results in this redesign. A lightweight text focused website doesn't really need pagination, in my opinion, until at least 50 or 100 search results on a single page are displayed.

Here's a fairly large blog post with over 23 thousand words on a single page written by @Seirdy. There's no pagination involved and the page opens without issues even on a slower internet connection.

https://seirdy.one/posts/2020/11/23/website-best-practices/

Of course, giving users a choice about how many search results they want in a single page might be a better option.

Best practices for inclusive textual websites

A lengthy guide to making simple, inclusive sites focused on content before form. Emphasizes brutalist design and accessibility to include under-represented users.

Seirdy’s Home

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Michael Lewis Aug 20, 2023

@ayushnix The information density feedback is an interesting one. It is something I've noticed with designer designed designs many times before, and put it down to a designer vs developer thing, hoping that the designers are more in tune with what the average user likes than developers are. There are exactly the same number of results in the new design as the old design though (10 for search and 12 for newest - see source at https://github.com/searchmysite/searchmysite.net/blob/main/src/web/content/dynamic/searchmysite/solr.py ) but you just have to scroll more.

searchmysite.net/src/web/content/dynamic/searchmysite/solr.py at main · searchmysite/searchmysite.net

searchmysite.net is an open source search engine and search as a service - searchmysite/searchmysite.net

GitHub

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Ayush Agarwal

@michaellewis I guess having to scroll more made me think that the original design had more results in a page. But yeah, even Google search seems to be more information dense right now (that information may not necessarily be useful) and that seems to be low bar to meet.