I opened up "my eBay/ All Selling" this morning to see how the various bits and pieces I had listed for sale were doing... Only to find... shock horror... the eBay web design team finally got round to "modernizing" the Selling pages - by ruining them, as usual!
They have done the only thing they seem to know how to do: increased the amount of white space on the pages, and reduced the amount of information you can see without either scrolling, or clicking on a new page altogether.
If this trend continues for another couple of iterations, My eBay will be reduced to a completely white page, with just one single non-white pixel in the middle that is there for the sole purpose of giving the design team something to remove in the next update!
Honestly, I think if these people were responsible for designing the Excel spreadsheet, we would only see four cells in a spreadsheet... no matter how big our monitor, they would just scale the four cells to make them take up the entire screen! - That idea immediately seems ridiculous when we talk about spreadsheets... why can't modern web designers seem to understand that it is just as ridiculous on any other information containing page?
The main reason is most of the visitors nowadays are using mobile phones (or a tablet at best), devices with small screens and slow resolution. Or maybe a gaming console, or a smart TV that has no mouse, things like that.
Therefore the webpages are optimized for phone browsing and touchscreens, and nobody cares anymore for the power users browsing from a desktop/laptop. Would be too expensive to have two distinct webdesigns, one for the very small and one for the very big screens.
Personally, I normally use a browser window around 1000px wide, though have been sitting at 1200 for a while as too many "desktop version" sites demand there be no inbetween.
The main reason is most of the visitors nowadays are using mobile phones (or a tablet at best), devices with small screens and slow resolution. Or maybe a gaming console, or a smart TV that has no mouse, things like that.
Therefore the webpages are optimized for phone browsing and touchscreens, and nobody cares anymore for the power users browsing from a desktop/laptop. Would be too expensive to have two distinct webdesigns, one for the very small and one for the very big screens.
There are still hundreds of millions of PCs and Macs in use across the world... why give them all an inferior experience?
This kind of thing is what happens when Big Tech gets a monopoly, after a short love affair during the growth years... - you get the service that is convenient to them, not the service you actually want and need.
There are still hundreds of millions of PCs and Macs in use across the world... why give them all an inferior experience?
This kind of thing is what happens when Big Tech gets a monopoly, after a short love affair during the growth years... - you get the service that is convenient to them, not the service you actually want and need.
Let's assume Ebay is not actually self destructive and are following the demands of customers. I also don't agree Ebay has a monopoly. My last purchase was on Aliexpress as was the previous one.
I think eBay has a monopoly on a certain group of buyers. They don't like to stray.
I think eBay has a monopoly on a certain group of buyers. They don't like to stray.
I would love to stray, but what option is there? I've explored a few alternatives but always walked away thoroughly disappointed. Nowhere near the selection of interesting stuff and sky high asking prices on anything that was even remotely interesting. It's a classic chicken & egg problem, none of the competitors have ever hit critical mass.
[...] Let's assume Ebay is not actually self destructive and are following the demands of customers. [...]
I don't think any modern "UI designers" re-design for their users/customers. It's either for what the designers think is best, or what the designers think their users/customers think is best.
Google's UIs are mind boggling. GNOME desktop? Just no. Don't get me started on Windows 10 and other Microsoft applications. And Amazon? Can you not design your website to flow properly?
UI design is easy. GOOD UI design is not. I've stopped assuming designers know what they're doing or that they're designing for their users.
Middle aged man shouts at cloud!