Hi! Cool that you've put this together! Two thoughts on the magazine website so far:
First, a little related to the Pocket-accessibility post below, the text scales badly on a desktop screen. I often have two browser windows side by side (now that computer monitors are so wide, this works out!). It seems like when the webpage is over 800px, the text shrinks to keep the same ratio of column width to margin size. The result is that at a nice, comfortable 952px (about half my screen), the text is tiny, probably under "size 8" in the old word processor sense. This feels silly when I see the large margins when the page is fullscreened. I would expect the margins to collapse first.
Beyond that, when you do make the window narrow enough, under 800px I think, it clearly changes to a mobile layout. Now, beyond the fact that it refreshes and loses my scroll location (none of these articles are long enough for that to be a big problem, but I imagine there will be longer pieces as the magazine continues), the text at 800px is laughably big on a desktop - so much so that I feel like I'm constantly scrolling, like on a phone screen, when there's a nice middle ground going unappreciated. Honestly, for me this wouldn't be a problem if the standard desktop layout didn't shrink so much, but right now it means my choices are to spend an entire screen on the magazine, or have the text be too small or too large, with no happy medium.
Second, I was surprised how hard it was to find a place to contact you! For all the talk of community, I couldn't find a single non-social-media spot for contact, and the "join the community" link is just to sign up for the newsletter, which I already read (I don't Tweet or use Facebook or Instagram, and I'm not really looking for this feedback to be a public conversation, just something I personally let someone know about). I only found this comment section when I left the magazine and went back to my RSS reader which I had to leave to read the magazine, where I found this comment link provided by Substack. I'm all for coming up with new and innovative forms of communication and connection, but I think an email address, a "Contact Us" form, or something like those would be valuable. Not everyone wants to carry out all their communication in the public sphere!
Thank you for listening, and I hope that you continue the important work you've been doing! I like the interview with Amelia Winger-Bearskin a lot, and I'm glad you've introduced me to her work.
Thanks for the feedback. Rest assured we're working on this stuff, especially the text sizing. Also, it might not seem like it, but we're a really small team so any messages anywhere: replying to the newsletter, tweeting at/DMing us, or sending an email to hello @ newpublic.org (which is on the site, but I agree, could be better advertised) will get our attention, I promise.
Hi! Cool that you've put this together! Two thoughts on the magazine website so far:
First, a little related to the Pocket-accessibility post below, the text scales badly on a desktop screen. I often have two browser windows side by side (now that computer monitors are so wide, this works out!). It seems like when the webpage is over 800px, the text shrinks to keep the same ratio of column width to margin size. The result is that at a nice, comfortable 952px (about half my screen), the text is tiny, probably under "size 8" in the old word processor sense. This feels silly when I see the large margins when the page is fullscreened. I would expect the margins to collapse first.
Beyond that, when you do make the window narrow enough, under 800px I think, it clearly changes to a mobile layout. Now, beyond the fact that it refreshes and loses my scroll location (none of these articles are long enough for that to be a big problem, but I imagine there will be longer pieces as the magazine continues), the text at 800px is laughably big on a desktop - so much so that I feel like I'm constantly scrolling, like on a phone screen, when there's a nice middle ground going unappreciated. Honestly, for me this wouldn't be a problem if the standard desktop layout didn't shrink so much, but right now it means my choices are to spend an entire screen on the magazine, or have the text be too small or too large, with no happy medium.
Second, I was surprised how hard it was to find a place to contact you! For all the talk of community, I couldn't find a single non-social-media spot for contact, and the "join the community" link is just to sign up for the newsletter, which I already read (I don't Tweet or use Facebook or Instagram, and I'm not really looking for this feedback to be a public conversation, just something I personally let someone know about). I only found this comment section when I left the magazine and went back to my RSS reader which I had to leave to read the magazine, where I found this comment link provided by Substack. I'm all for coming up with new and innovative forms of communication and connection, but I think an email address, a "Contact Us" form, or something like those would be valuable. Not everyone wants to carry out all their communication in the public sphere!
Thank you for listening, and I hope that you continue the important work you've been doing! I like the interview with Amelia Winger-Bearskin a lot, and I'm glad you've introduced me to her work.
Thanks for the feedback. Rest assured we're working on this stuff, especially the text sizing. Also, it might not seem like it, but we're a really small team so any messages anywhere: replying to the newsletter, tweeting at/DMing us, or sending an email to hello @ newpublic.org (which is on the site, but I agree, could be better advertised) will get our attention, I promise.
Sorry! We've tried to prioritize accessibility in our custom design but we have some work to do, clearly.