What is Digg?72 Comments
- bobgb4, on 10/12/2007, -5/+102websites don't exist in nature
- Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -1/+66If a womans face is that ratio, she will be beautiful, but that doesn't mean she'll be easy to use!!
- microtopian, on 10/12/2007, -5/+40That's e^(pi*i) + 1 = 0
- Schug, on 10/12/2007, -9/+42Ther isn't any example of a website ratioed like that, so I can't really visualize it. No Digg
- carguy84, on 10/12/2007, -5/+33I dont even know what they mean by a 1.618:1 ratio website. But I do know I love my widescreen TV....
- rowanjl, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29The point is they didn't provide an example, so no body has any idea what the hell they are talking about.
- allahmohammed, on 10/12/2007, -17/+41The "Golden Ratio" as an aesthetic ideal is a myth. It has always been a myth. It is Pythagorean-cult nonsense.
Did you know e^i(pi) 1 = 0 whooooooo! spacy! Five fundamental constants in one equation whoooooooo!
Its just math. Get over it. Write some Fibonacci poetry and shade yourself with a Gosper curve to cool off. - zyntax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24Simple, that's exactly 19.6 students per group.
No more no less. - Phyltre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15See, this is another one of those stories where they describe something visual to you and then manage not to include a link to it or a photograph or a screenshot or anything.
I mean, it's a story about web aesthetics and we have no example to look at?
We have the internet for a reason, and that reason isn't all black-and-white text... - anudeglory, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17No, that's what Ad Block was made for...
- elgato65, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I'm not digging this.
Too little information given about the specifics of the testing and too many unlisted variables in this "sutdy" to come to the conclusion that the golden ratio is at fault for the results.
What about typography, color, relative position to each other of links, background colors, etc? Just stating that the criteria was more or less spacing of the navigational bar stupid. And what's up with the non existant examples to back up this crap claim? - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16From their description, it sounds like the guy just made a basic site and varied the width of the sidebar (which was used for navigation).
But yeah, that sidebar would be way too wide. Little math tells me it would be a width:38%.
For those who need to visualize it, here you go: http://ottodestruct.com/goldenratio.html - busta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14They studied 5 websites, only one designed to golden ratio proportions. The sample size is way too small to draw any conclusions from. The golden ratio site could have plainly been a ***** site. This study is absolutely worthless.
- kerchov, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12That was pretty useless, basically New Scientist is saying that websites with golden triangle proportions are hard/harder to extract information. Give me a break. Golden triangle or the making thereof is to improve the aesthetics of the design/sculpture/painting. Golden triangle is not meant to "optimize" information extraction.
It's not like we are required to read Shakespeare printed on a shape of Mona Lisa. - addisonj, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14sure its only math, but a very interesting (at least in my mind) that all those irrational numbers can come together to =0. Same goes for Golden ratio, but you have to admit that it is very heavily found throughout nature and its use in some mediums makes more beautiful and more functional design and form.
- jaiwithani, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12I'm a math major, and I was just working on a somewhat odd tiling problem where, for no readily apparent reason, the golden ratio (in some form) appears twice in the answer. It really is a peculiar number.
- fatcat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+898 students into 5 groups
how exactly do you do that evenly? - dc0958, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The Ancient Greeks sucked at web design, I thought everyone knew that?
- LoungeActx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8ok, now let's pick apart his experiment:
- 5 Groups of People -- Does this take into account the peoples' reading abilities? I mean think about it, if you have a stronger ability to read through something of course it will take you less time to find the information you are looking for. Each site was essentially the same right? With a frame on the left with navigation, and content on the right. The only difference being that the frame and content were proportioned slightly different.
- Also, in order to take this experiment seriously, we have to take into consideration the information design, and layout. Maybe this website was all text, maybe the navigation was all pictures. Who knows?
These are just two things I question. I'm sure if I sat here long enough I could think of more. Did anyone else notice that the guy totally disregards blinking animated advertisements as being nondistractive? - pdrap, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8The golden rectangle definitely forms interesting mathematical ratio, and you're right that because of the ratio it's found in nature, particular fractal constructions such as geometric derivatives of the logarythmic nautilus shell spiral.
But a lot of people are skeptical of when you find the golden rectangle in every place you look. There are some people who find a thing of beauty and then go looking for golden rectangles. They might find some golden rectangles, or something very close, and then attribute the object's beauty to the golden rectangles that it contains. I don't think that's correct, as it certainly seems likely to me that there's many objects which are beautiful that do not contain the golden rectangle. And, it's true that objects which contain the golden rectangle might also contain other non-golden rectangles. Why then ascribe beauty to only some rectangles and not others?
It's a case of people seeing what they are looking for, and discounting the things they aren't looking for. It's false attribution of beauty to the golden rectangle. - sovok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4See http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/pictures/golden.gif
- Hyperion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I love how they call it "Breaking News".
Lmao. - Whosawhatsis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The golden ratio can have its place in web design, but using it as a ratio of the widths of the side bar to the content is ludicrous, as making the content area so small clearly impedes function. There are more subtle ways to use it that make more sense, for instance, it would probably often be a good ratio for the width of a sidebar and height of a header.
Look at the iPod, did they use the golden ratio for the dimensions? Not quite. Did they use it for the dimensions of the screen? No, it'd be too short. Did they use it for the size of the screen? No, that'd make the whole screen too small. Where did they decide to use it? It's the ratio of the width of the iPod to the diameter of the click wheel. - kalphegor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7my conclusion is: they don't know how to design a website
- rekrapt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7At least nobody who doesn't understand the Golden Ratio in the first place... like me. I'm mathematically impaired.
- DrTaco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don’t think you understand the purpose of a good designer. Designers are supposed to make things work better for everyone, even for business websites. The idea of good design is form follows function. The problem is when the form and art of the webpage supersedes the functional qualities.
- sovok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well, of course it's not ideal for websites. If the site ist 1280px wide, the menu would be 489px. It needs no expensive (but job-securing, i guess) study to know that this is way too much...
- spadin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm finding it hard to visualize this experiment.
- mordain, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Depends what you consider natural, if beavers can build dams & birds build nests & bees build hives why isn't my site building natural? ;-)
- fireflyx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Me too.
Can someone upload image examples of WEB DESIGNS so we could actually see? - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> Imitating intelligent design makes sense and that is why there is a field of study called
> biomemetics.
you guys will slip creationist propoganda in at every opportunity won't ya. do any of you know that the human body has quite a few flaws. most of medicine is not about being injured. - TomP, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Did anyone see that horrible ad slap bang in the middle?
- PixelKid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Whats with the goddam advert all over the article?? now way am digging a site thats designed to obscure the article your trying to read!
- anvilon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3kerchov: Good point.
Esthetics are, by definition, a measurement of beauty or art. These are emotional aspects, not logical. Information may provoke emotion, but it's difficult/impossible to transmit concrete data with emotion or beauty. This finding shouldn't be that surprising.
I would be very interested to know the difference between men and women in this test. Men are normally thinking emotionally OR logically. Women can be emotional AND logical at the same time because of how their brains are wired. Might women be able to extract information faster from esthetically-pleasing pages or are they distracted by the page's artistry? - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> Imitating intelligent design makes sense and that is why there is a field of study called
> biomemetics.
you guys will slip creationist propoganda in at every opportunity won't ya. do any of you know that the human body has quite a few flaws. most of medicine is not about being injured. - ScottyQuest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So ugly sites have a certain ease of use? Is how Myspace still exists?
Though there must be something else, no one would ever compliment Myspace on its ease of use... unless they were refering to the ease of hooking up with teen girls. - Genma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2just another bs article refuting an oversimplified concept. many important variables left out, but still worth considering.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Mejogid -> Incorrect.
4:3 and 16:9 can't be both close to it, unless you decide any rectangle is close to it.
If 4:3 is close to it, then 12:9 should be, not 16:9 (4:3, 8:6, 12:9)
This whole thing is just a dream that a lot of people have jumped on, if you want to find something you will, doesn't mean anything. For example, read this - http://www.skepdic.com/bibcode.html something can seem highly improbable and infact be extremely probable. - soupisgoodfood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm sorry, but without exact details of the sites and such information as the width of the main text columns, this article is completely useless and doesn't prove anything that isn't blindingly obvious already. And to say that is it worse, when there is nothing to comapre it to, is simply inacurate.
A site that used the 1.618:1 ratio, but had total width of 300px, or 1200px is of course going to be harder to use than a non 1.618:1 ratio site that had it's main content width set for optimum readability. - Midnightbrewer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As the saying goes, good design is based on a sliding rule. As was mentioned elsewhere, good use of typography, color, and other visual elements also plays a key role; they're interdependent, which should seem obvious when the word "design" comes into play. If this "web design psychologist" (there's a solution in search of a problem if I ever heard of one) failed to change these other factors to reflect the different ratios, then a design that works well in a more "traditional" web layout is going to fall apart when stretched into the new proportions. Since a lot of scientists work on the theory that you should only have a limited set of variables and a whole lot of constants, I'm willing to bet that the "golden ratio" website looked like total crap.
- hobbla87, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1too small of a sample size... that 2 second difference isn't significant with just 98 total (not to mention divided among more groups)
- MasherSCF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They should make photo prints in these ratios.
4x6, 3x5, 5x8, 8x13, 13x21, 21x34. All these are fractions that approximate the golden number...some better than others. - strcmp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Stop calling it the Golden Ratio. The Golden Mean is an irRATIOnal number, which means that it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Um... bad news dude, that wasn't much thinking.
- findhostcoupons, on 03/22/2009, -0/+1Quite interesting topic to create a mass discussion! :)
- soupisgoodfood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sorry, you said "designer" where you meant to say "graphic artist". Either that, or you really don't understand what a designer does.
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1not sure what they are talking about. most publishing follows the 1/3-1/3-1/3 rule. white space, text, graphic. been at it a while and i've never heard anyone say anything about this ratio in publishing. maybe it is something "thought up" by a geek that had no training in page layout.
- GeneralSun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good call, but for webmasters getting the user to stay around longer is probably more important than presenting information fastest. So if golden ratio websites are prettier and gets the user to stay around longer, then I'm all for it!
- Ikioi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is silly. Especially if they are talking about a site like the one posted above (http://ottodestruct.com/goldenratio.html). Of course the design would be crap, but it depends on how you use the numbers, and you must also take screen ratios into respect. You can't put a 1.618:1 on top of a 4:3 display and expect cosmic harmony and bliss to magically appear. Also, the ratio (rounded to 3 points usually, actual number is 5^.5*.5+.5) works many ways, and actually should be viewed as a 1.618:1:0.618 construct of Phi, 1, and phi. These numbers are useful in web design to achieve certain effects... just like ANY ratio can be used to achieve certain effects. It just so happens that things like Pi, Phi/phi, have certain uses. I've found Phi more useful in finding complemetary webcolors rather than in shapes.
Also, it seems to me that if this ratio takes longer, websites would like it more. Finding info quick and leaving is good for the visitor, not the website.
The number is meant to be useful in certain situations, just like Pi, but not every situation. Will they test Pi next? Testing to see if people like circular worded websites better than words going left->right, up->down? No Digg! - MasherSCF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Basically, the "golden ratio" is limit of the ratio of two consecutive terms of a Fibonacci sequence. For fun, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34.... That ratio is an irrational number. Oddly enough, the home depot lacks measuring tools with irrational settings, therefore nobody ever really builds to the exact ratio. The Fibonacci sequence models some natural growth phenomena so the golden ratio shows up in nature. The rest is just artistic hype. Does an 8x13 sheet of paper look better than a 3x5 card? I hardly think so. Web designers should let form follow function. Function makes a beautiful website.
A ratio is the comparison of ANY 2 values, not just integers. A rational number is a ratio of 2 integers. -
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