Literally half the page is covered by a massive photo.
I expected scrolling further down the article would rid me of it, but it doesn't - furthermore, it's aligned to the right instead of the left, which breaks my brain while I'm trying to read it.
I can't imagine any benefit to this layout. Shrinking the screen causes the article to display properly, I learned, and I couldn't find a Reader mode...
Great article - extremely poor formatting in Desktop mode.
It's a readability thing. Many designers are taught (or organically arrive at the conclusion) that the ideal width to read an article at is roughly "book" width. There's some merit to the idea; it's easier to keep track of where the last line ended by seeing the shape of the words without needing your eyeballs to dance all over the place.
Once readability is founded, their argument is "who gives a rats arse about the rest of the page?" It's not the BEST design philosophy, but it's far from the worst one.
More about optimal line lengths if you're curious.
With line lengths that are too long, the user may have a hard time tracking back to the next line. Line lengths too narrow, the user's pacing and rhythm is thrown off. https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability
I find the page easy to read as I hate wide chunks of text in general, but for what it's worth, Reader Mode in Firefox worked perfectly on that page when I just tested it.
Literally half the page is covered by a massive photo.
I expected scrolling further down the article would rid me of it, but it doesn't - furthermore, it's aligned to the right instead of the left, which breaks my brain while I'm trying to read it.
I can't imagine any benefit to this layout. Shrinking the screen causes the article to display properly, I learned, and I couldn't find a Reader mode...
Great article - extremely poor formatting in Desktop mode.