Open Thread, October 27 - 31, 2013

Ah, a vote for "it's better this way". Why do you prefer pure text? Is it because of the danger of being overrun with cat pictures and blinking gif smileys?

Gunnar_Zarncke13y00

It is because text can be copy-pasted and composed easily since browsers mostly allow selecting any text (this is more difficult in win apps).

Whereas images cannot be copy pasted as simple (mostly you have to find the URL and copy paste that) and images cannot be composed easily at all (you at least need some pic editor which often doesn't allow simple copy-paste).

This is the old problem that there is no graphical language. A problem that has evadad GUI designers since the beginning.

5hyporational13y

Let's take that particular image. It covers a huge block that could have been filled by text otherwise and conveys relatively little information accurately. It distrupts my reading completely for a little while and getting back to the nice flow takes cognitive effort. This moment I'm reading on my phone and the image fills the whole screen.

See in context