I've always disliked the "BIG TEXT CHOPPED-OUT BUT YOU'LL READ IT BELOW AGAIN IN JUST A SECOND" paradigm in magazines and newspapers. Like, I'm reading the article anyway, why suddenly spit some of the words in my face super big? I'm guessing it's for skimmers, catch their eye and bring them into an interesting paragraph that's further down from the top.
But this article does it at the beginning... we read the sentence "Hello, I used to build very large JavaScript applications" three times. First as an image, then as a label for the image... and then as the first sentence of the article. Why lol
Because, even closer to the beginning, in the real first sentence of the article (by which I mean, the first sentence after the title), it says, "This is a mildly edited transcript of my JSConf Australia talk."
This is not an example of the "big text chopped out" paradigm from magazines, it's an example of the, "each slide contains a brief of the most important part of what you'll be saying while that slide is being displayed" paradigm from conference lectures.
The problem is those slides hinder the readability of the actual article.
For a reader, you get into the rhythm of the writer's voice, only to be interrupted by a giant image of text every other paragraph. It's a battle between just skimming the slides, or trying to read the content.
If the author had just swapped out the "loud" text images for subtle headers, the article would actually flow.
And therein is also seen a limitation of using someone else’s blog engine; on large (wide) displays, this would be better done with the slides on one side, and the speech on the other, appropriately lined up. But you can’t do that when you’re using Medium for the post.
I've been thinking the exact same thing for years and couldn't put it into words.
The most annoying thing is I can never be sure whether the BIG TEXT CHOPPED-OUT is actually going to be repeated again later in the article. Otherwise I'd just happily ignore those big sections every single time. As it is now, I have to read it and then get mad when moments later I find myself reading the exact same thing. I wish there was a way to stop this.
The images are labeled for accessibility reasons; they're used as fallback descriptions for figures and images. The slides are wrapped with `<figure>` tags, and the captions with `<figcaption>` tags. They're so that screen readers can interpret the figure, which is why the text is often redundant.
That text (here and in magazines, newspapers) isn't for you. It's for the casual browser who isn't reading the article yet. It's trying to suck you in and/or give you teensy bite of info even if you don't read the article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_quote
Of course this article format is kinda pushing the limits I agree.
I admit to often reading things that are far outside my wheelhouse, or not always topics I assume I will enjoy. If I start one of these and find myself loosing interest, these quotes and call outs can draw me further in or push me right out.
It's like putting a cover on a book that is related to the matter in the book, to keep you reading because you may start getting bored, so they pull out a sound byte. Pretty obvious.
But this article does it at the beginning... we read the sentence "Hello, I used to build very large JavaScript applications" three times. First as an image, then as a label for the image... and then as the first sentence of the article. Why lol