Legos; also the ender 3d printer. I had a nostalgic time putting the ender together. Felt like a lego set. That's not saying it was trivial (it challenged me) but that I trusted it every step of the way not because of previous experience, but because of the obvious well-designed aspects of the experience as I was putting it together. For example: I put on a part sloppily, and trying to attach anther part was the first real resistance I felt in the entire process -- physical that is, I had to study every page of the manual for a minute or two before even being able to figure out what the next step would need to be, but it was always clear after studying.
Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
51–60 of 994 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#52- Canon 5D classic. Fits my hand perfectly and the way colors are popping is something that i chase in photography to this day
- Older Intuos drawing tablets. Super sturdy, great experience to work with, and battery-less pen tech which for many years was offered only by Wacom products
- iPod Classic. Great interface idea with the touch circle, nice metal back.
- HHKB Keyboard. Something i use to this day and don't really plan to change, even as I'm strongly into custom keyboards as a hobby. The layout is just too perfect for programming, especially if you're used to Vim.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#53My Cuisinart PerfectTemp water kettle.
I bought it 11 years ago, a couple years after moving out. It was more expensive than many of its competitors, but the build quality seemed worth the investment. Early in my career, it was a big investment.
I have used it nearly every single day in that time, and honestly never stopped to think about it until now. It's been a fixture of my life. Other than the occasional descaling, it's been perfect without maintenance.
Beyond that, as someone who drinks a lot of coffee - I'd also like to mention my classic Bunn coffee maker. It has a reservoir of water it keeps hot, the new water you add displaces the old water like a water heater, so you're able to make an entire pot of coffee in under 3 minutes.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#54The Kershaw Leek pocket knife. Flips open one-handed and makes a satisfying “snick”. I’ve used mine daily for 5 years. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009VC9YK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
I've the similar Kershaw 'Tactical' Blur for 12 years; they are great knives.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#55https://linear.app is great. I list all sites I love here: https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/design/design-inspiration#we...
Is this made by the same people who made https://www.raycast.com/?
The website design seems uncannily similar.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#56BitTorrent is amazing. It just works. Anyone anywhere can create a torrent of their files, dump the magnet link somewhere, and everyone else can reliably retrieve it. It is self-reinforcing; the more people using a torrent, the better the robustness, redundancy and download speeds. You can often get better speeds from downloading something via torrent than from a web server. It's an open protocol that is relatively e…
Wish browsers had built in support for it. Imagine if by default most downloads were through BitTorrent, and your browser would then seed the file for 1.5x the download size and time.
WebTorrent gets you pretty close.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#57Actual physical books.
The format has been around for 2000 years, so it's pretty well refined.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#58https://linear.app is great. I list all sites I love here: https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/design/design-inspiration#we...
Is this made by the same people who made https://www.raycast.com/ ? The website design seems uncannily similar.
Different teams I believe. I think Raycast team uses Linear for issues and I am sure they inspire each other.
Raycast has Linear as one of the core extensions it lists: https://www.raycast.com/extensions/linear/
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#59Zojirushi rice cookers. Even though the shell is plastic it has a durable feel to it like you don't find it kitchen appliances anymore. It'll still work in 20+ years type feel
Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?
#60Thermapen
I just got the new Thermapen One and used it yesterday for Thanksgiving dinner. Although it is a relatively small evolutionary step from the ThermoWorks Classic, it is still a great design.