Eyestrain Settings

[rowyn]

I can't be the only person who's had this issue. What do you do when someone has set their LJ up in a manner you find so eyestraining -- either due to color scheme or font size or whatever -- that you find you'd rather skip their cut-tagged entries rather than read under those defaults?

Do you say something to the person in question? Do you adjust things on your end (I seem to recall it's possible to override the personal settings and force all LJs to appear in your chosen mode)? Cut 'n paste cut-tagged entries into a notepad file to read them? Just skip the entries and don't worry about it?

Conversely: if someone found your journal's settings unpleasant to look at, would you rather they said something so you'd know, or would you consider it rude if they voiced their opinion?

I know I'd rather know. But then again, I've never bothered to change the style on individual entries, so my chosen style would only be an issue for people who read directly from my journal, as opposed to from their friends list. On the other hand, I recently switched styles on unfinishedtales, and have been wondering since then if the new style causes trouble for readers (it seems to scroll slower to me). Aha, and Lut just noted that this is a problem for him, too. Methinks I need to switch it off. Hmm. I'm thinking that if you want people to tell you if your journal style is annoying, you need to ask them directly, rather than expecting comments if it's a problem.

Comments

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

I read my friends' posts from my 'friends'
page rather than visiting their own journals
usually ao in many cases I have no idea what
sort of fancy format they have...
do you go to each person's own journal separately?

[rowyn]

No, but some people not only have defaults set for their main page, but the individual entries have their own styles, as well. prester_scott, for example. If you go to leave a comment in his journal, or look at a cut-tagged entry, you're looking at his own style, rather than at the default blue-and-white version. (And no, I have no complaints with Prester Scott's style.) :)

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

Yes I see...I had sort of noticed that
sometimes I was thrust into trying to write
a reply in a place where I could hardly read
the thing or understand what to click etc...
hadnt realized qhite how that worked...
never did anything beyond the basic blue
and white thing myself.
never purely grasped what is the interest of
creating all sorts of styles...
but maybe it is because I am in some ways kind of
lacking in style. remarked to someone who disliked
bob dylan's voice yesterday that I had always
thought it was the epitome of cool to which they
replied questioning whether I would know what
the epitome of cool was...and likely *sigh*
they are right. :)
but I think I can say it is not pink text on a light green
page or something...
+Seraphim

[prester-scott.livejournal.com]

I'm sensitive to the hard-on-the-eyes problem, so I picked a mild color scheme.

Getting Helpful Information

[telnar.livejournal.com]

As it happens, I've never noticed your LJ styles one way or the other, which is probably a good thing.

Your post got me thinking about a more general question, though: How does one encourage people to provide criticism. I think that you're right to assume that most wouldn't comment on visually unpleasant styles and therefore that you have to ask if you want to know. The real problem is that you have to think to ask.

Life would be so much easier if there were a way for us to communicate what types of criticism we each consider constructive. Most of us would probably want to hear that a flashing orange journal background wasn't making the text easier to read, but I doubt that equally many would appreciate a less actionable comment like "You're too tall. I find that ugly."

Unfortunately, it's hard to convey that in a general way since there is good reason for others to err on the side of safety when the potential risk of offending someone will generally seem more significant than the potential benefit from providing a little extra information.

For good measure, each person's dividing line between helpful and annoying criticism is different -- in some cases by quite a bit, so it's not necessarily easy for acquaintances to guess right.

Re: Getting Helpful Information

[telnar.livejournal.com]

On a related note, I would want to hear even less actionable comments (once) because I find it helpful to understand what is coloring people's perceptions, but I doubt that view is the norm.

Re: Getting Helpful Information

[telnar.livejournal.com]

This is making me think of a survey along the lines of:

1) If a friend of mine noticed something that was causing him a minor nuisance which I could easily change, I would want him to:

-- Grin and bear it
-- Let me know only if he could do it tactfully
-- Tell me even if it was likely to come out wrong

2) If a friend of mine was bothered by something I'm not likely to be able to change, I would want him to:

-- Grin and bear it
-- Let me know only if he could do it tactfully
-- Tell me even if it was likely to come out wrong

3) Have I ever gotten upset with someone who was trying to provide constructive criticism?

-- No
-- Yes, and most of them deserved it
-- Yes, and I wish I hadn't

[sheepdog.livejournal.com]

I agree that you can't trust that everyone will let you know they are having problems.
When I decided to mess around with my style settings I asked and only a couple people replied, so I'm not sure how well that worked either.
I guess if someone really wants to read what you've written, they'll either find a way or let you know of their problem.
There is a way to force all journals to assume the view you want, but I'm not familiar how to do it.

[detroitfather.livejournal.com]

My answer is asymmetric: I would want to be told immediately if my colours were unreadable. But I would probably not tell anyone else ... unless I REALLY wanted to read their LJ. Most folks with unreadable colour schemes also change them fairly often.