I like this. It got me to thinking about creating a text-only version of my website, but so much of what I publish relies on pictures that without them there wouldn't be a whole lot of interest left.
Interesting. I want text. I figure that I can get pretty pictures online. I want it to be full of text. I guess that would depend on the subject matter though.
Publish it with lower-res versions of the pictures, perhaps clickable if someone really wants the higher-res version. The no-frills, no-JS, no-bloat reading experience is still useful even if your content is mostly picture-centric.
You're right about the pictures for sure, I need to add a few random pics and thumbnails for chapter headings. I focussed on SEO for starters and Googlebot doesn't see pictures, but now that I have people I need to think about actual aesthetics.
Interesting. I usually add images to post to help break up the text and make some mental connection between sections that I am talking about and a picture.
So Q. Is the problem that the images are stock images? Or is the issue that there are images?
Wouldn't just a bunch of text and no images make it much harder to get through the content?
Not arguing one way or the other, just curious on thoughts on this.
It’s not text only. It’s 1 page == 1 request. Meaning that a page can have links to images but a client will not fetch them and display them inline. This prevents cross-site tracking where view a page forces the client to also make a request to a 3rd party like an ad or web bug
I built an entire geography guess game in Gemini. It uses images.
I assumed that the text is not important. I am showing only the pictures. I wanted to have something like Instagram for Facebook Pages. Do you think the text is important?
"Regarding the images that have been stripped, ask yourself: Did the photo really contribute much to the article?"
Not for me. I have been using a text-only browser to read the www for over 20 years. The keyword here is "read". I do not need graphics to read text.
Ocassionally I get a glimpse of the type of images that users of graphical browsers would see when reading articles and I am often shocked by how little these images add to the text. In a remarkable number of cases, they are just garbage "filler". As if the publisher was "required" to use some images. Perhaps use of images has some effect on users' response to advertising.
What's more is that in cases of true photojournalism, by a reputable media outlet, where I do want to look at the photos, I often find I can extract the URLs and download the images, for offline viewing, easier with non-graphical clients than if I am using a graphical browser. Viewing images is one thing, but I would not want to rely on a graphical browser for downloading them to view offline.
I think graphics are overrated. They have a place, but they are routinely being used in situations used when they are not truly necessary. They do not add anything except distraction.
Love your website, but I'm not sure it need to follow this post's advice since it isn't exactly a text-based website; retro graphics are clearly a big part of its content. I'd be missing a lot if I just used my browser's reader mode.
Maybe I should clarify what I mean by textual websites that in the article. Thanks!
I find it humorous that his "Invention" site is mostly text but all in images. Humorous because his other business is web usability consulting. Not using text is probably the least usable thing you can do.
I feel like the lack of image support is a missed opportunity.
I know it is an idealogical choice to only have text, but being able to embed standard image formats (on a totally plain, non fancy way) would increase the utility of this hugely. They mention blogs and tutorials and recipes here - those would benefit hugely from having simple inline images within the body of the text, just like you expect in a newspaper etc.
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