The aim of a streamlined user interface is appreciated, but the current trend towards extreme minimalism can be counterproductive. It often leads to a cumbersome experience where accessing common features or information requires unnecessary navigation.
Take, for instance, the display of the author’s name and instance. Certain Lemmy applications deem the instance trivial and choose to hide it, while others omit the author’s details from the main feed entirely, necessitating extra steps to uncover them.
Another example is the ability to view upvotes and downvotes as distinct figures. While some may only want the aggregate score, the absence of this feature overlooks the preferences of users who value this detail.
Implementing optional features like displaying author names, instances, or separate up/downvote counts gives users more control over their app experience. This way, those who prefer a clean interface can keep it that way, while those who value specific details can have them readily available.
I feel like in your example case, the best option in scrolling text. Have settings for if it passively scrolls all the time, when clicked/tapped, or when the content is “focused”. If you want to go the extra mile or are making a mobile specific app, have a slider option for scroll speed. Usually the text will stay stationary with the end cut off for a little bit, before scrolling at a constant speed, sometimes stopping for a shorter time at the end than the pause at the beginning.
This is how the grand majority of music player apps I’ve used handle long song titles/song info lines, and it works well on mobile for this sort of thing.
I’d imagine there’s resources out there for UI pattern concepts for stuff like this. If there isn’t, someone should make one.
Also, not to be rude but I’d have to wonder about how many desktop users actually want an app/program for something perfectly functional in a web browser, especially when userscripts and custom css theming tools like stylish exist that could theoretically cover any extra functionality that an app could offer.
Personally with things like Facebook, 4chan, Reddit, and Lemmy, I’ve always used the browser with addons, userscripts, and custom css theming. Apps seem to be best for mobile device browsing, where most of these sorts of sites have crap mobile interfaces, and things like notifications might be useful. But that’s just my usage pattern.
Hmm. Interesting. That did not occur to me. Not sure how I feel about it, personally, but I could probably make it an option and let the users decide.
Basically have a section in the user options for overflowing titles:
Edit:
Uh, I do, lol. I hate having to bolt on a bunch of extra stuff to make the application behave like I feel it already should. Then there’s the fact that I use multiple browsers on multiple devices and would have to keep my scripts and plugins in sync - plus, most mobile browsers don’t support those (FF mobile is the only one I’m aware of that might/would).
That’s just…too much for me.