why? screen space.
"37h" is much short than the date and time of 37 hours ago.
of course, if you write out the age like "37 hours ago", that isn't as useful.
software doesn't _have_ to do it badly. the most recent version of this that i wrote will say it is Xmins old, but switch to the next unit after reaching 2*next-unit worth of time, so >120mins starts at 2h. then you get to 2d, 2mo (months), 2 years.
you can get the full datetime on hover.
all this is only in an object listing. when you open an object, you'll see the full date.
Screen space??
We have such large screens now, and yet most of these UIs are much more minimalist than any UI was 20 years ago when most of us were on 1024x768 or maybe 1280x1024 at best.
There is zero space excuse for this. It’s simply a fad, born from the Jony Ive fetish for form over function.
>We have such large screens now, and yet most of these UIs are much more minimalist than any UI was 20 years ago
need more room for the ads obviously.
>How is that a space issue?
it's all relative, but in your example you added a new line. Think of this HN comment section with 200 comments on a page and how much scrolling you need to add due to that decision.
Of course, the comment's design up the chain doesn't have this issue. But for horizontal space mobile is still going start to feel cramped when you add a time stamp to the existing:
[name] | 3 hours ago | root | parent | next [–]
because resolution means a lot less for mobile due to the smaller screen. Despite the much higher resolution there's less room to do things there due to the orientation and the size needed for readable text.
This can all be addressed with the best of both worlds using responsive design, but it requires smart design that is aligned with a goal of deliveing dense information. As you hinted at, that simply isn't the current goal for modern design. Less "newspaper" where the goal is to fit in information, and more "ad flyer" where the goal is to focus attention on the biggest eye catches and leave little else (except ads) to distract .
Just wanted to say that I put them on two lines to measure them, to illustrate that a simple date stamp is the same if not more compact. I think the relative one is bad, and at best should be the one stuck into the tooltip.
