Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#1

Post by louismerlin » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 6:16 AM UTC

Do you know any websites that have weird UIs ? Something like a ZUI [1] for example.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#2

Post by tomglynch » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:53 AM UTC

You might find some interesting examples by going through the websites here: http://brutalistwebsites.com

They definitely dont all have weird UI, but some do.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#3

Post by JDiculous » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:54 AM UTC

Any examples of websites with ZUIs? Looks interesting!

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#4

Post by thewway481 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 8:15 AM UTC

it's just a proof of concept, but this web site discussed a few weeks ago absolutely blew my socks off:

discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20929801

site:

https://3dforreddit.com/r/pics

From a comment:

"

How to use it Desktop: Click to start, WASD and mouse to move

Mobile: Dragging on left half of screen is move, right have is look

Append any subreddit to the url to switch subreddits

"

It should work in any browser but if you have a good GPU it will help a ton.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#5

Post by dkersten » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 8:26 AM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #3

Any examples of websites with ZUIs? Looks interesting!

The only example I can think of is Miro (formerly realtimeboard), but it doesn’t feel like such a stretch there, since it makes sense for their product.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#6

Post by therealmarv » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 8:38 AM UTC

Google Maps has a ZUI in Chrome ;) more or less.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#7

Post by namrog84 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 8:39 AM UTC

Go spend 5 minutes here on pc desktop. http://cyberspaceandtime.com/Gaano9Y6KAU.video+related

I came across this site a few weeks ago. And it's quite unlike anything I've seen. And try to inspect the site using browser inspector. It's a very different ui than I've ever seen before.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#8

Post by tiborsaas » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

Check out http://hoverstat.es/

It's full of examples with unconventional design.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#9

Post by dandare » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:05 AM UTC

Inspired by zoomable interface https://uk.wikibudgets.org/w/united-kingdom-budget-2015

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#10

Post by mosselman » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:19 AM UTC

I've heard that some people build UIs with thousands of dependencies, in JavaScript that hits the server for text that is then parsed to object that are then passed through all sorts of classes that each spit out HTML. They also do some weird stuff with events like key-ups in order to re-render input fields based on objects rather than letting the browser manage those kinds of things.

Sounds pretty weird to me.