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Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

tonsky.me

211–220 of 315 posts

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have >500 commits on Github in the last year. I’m pretty sure that makes them a user: https://github.com/tonsky First rule of life: don’t stereotype people (“designers aren’t coders”). Second rule: check before leveling ad hominems.

For what it's worth, 500 commits is <2 commits per weekday for a year, which seems pretty low for the kind of power user I would assume github is actually designed towards.

maybe work stuff ain't on github?

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#212
I really enjoy this kind of articles even if I don't necessarily agree with all changes that the author made. Sometimes looking at the old/new comparison makes me consciously think about what makes it a good design for me and what doesn't.

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github is certainly used by developers. But I bet 95%+ of views of repositories’ start pages are made by “consumers” of that code. At least in my workflow, I visit dozens of those pages every week to, for example, choose between alternative libraries. My own projects’ index pages are definitely a small percentage of the total. And for those views, I would still prefer this redesign that gives me a quick overview of w…

However, a lions share of the revenue for github will be from developers, rather than "consumers".

The point was that developers themselves are often browsing repositories they do not own/contribute to.

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#214
I was ok with this until the part where OP changed the background color of the top of the page. From there, it all went downhill and very quickly became yet another "yay everything is flat and overly saturated" design. Boring and less usable.

I'm not even going to talk about that abomination done for the content.

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#215
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That noise is the exact reason why I think the design over the years hasn’t strayed away as captured in the screenshots. One of my favorite parts of using GitHub is that the design is clean and easy to navigate. Throwing twenty widgets on there and cramming everything on top of each other adds clutter and distracts users from being able to visually navigate the page. I can’t speak for everyone, but given the chance,…

Strongly agree with this, and it's probably the biggest reason I don't use BitBucket unless I'm getting paid to. The other big reason is that Bitbucket loads bunch of trackers and JavaScript from remote servers.

Names/urls of the trackers and scripts?

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#216

This is clearly a redesign done by someone who doesn't use GitHub, and doesn't look at anything but the main screen or why it is the way it is - especially when you start digging into the rest of the UI. The tabs they want to take away from the "code" screen have little or nothing to do with the other main tabs, that's why they're not cluttering up the main nav bar (which doesn't fit into the author's screenshots. No…

> This is clearly a redesign done by someone who doesn't use GitHub

They have >500 commits on Github in the last year: https://github.com/tonsky

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#217
post #17

> If you are a programmer, you might be surprised but other people normally don’t like hierarchies. Nested structures are hard to grasp, remember, navigate, and grouping is very often non-intuitive. Nested tabs are one of the worst UI patterns out there. GitHub is primarily a development tool, so it should be designed for developers. Hierarchies align very well with development tasks, so it's natural to use them for…

> Also, the three most common navigation tasks I do are "go to the code", "go to the issues" and "go to the pull requests." (...) With this redesign, I'm going to constantly have to find the "Issues" and "Pull Requests" tabs among a sea of others. That's not good usability.

I agree with this point, but it is one with a very easy fix: make them the first three tabs after "Overview" in the redesign.

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#218
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can some UI expert chime in what it is about the windows style redesign that makes everything so absolutely clear and easy to find? I can find everything literally at a glance? It's not sexy, quite the opposite but god does it run electricity through my fingers. I feel like i would use the shit out of it. Is it association and familiarity with the old windows UI or does it follow human nature better?

It's called nostalgia. It's emotional, not rational. Ask any 16 year old (like my son), who came of age having no context for what the windows 95 UI even looked like. Shocker, he vastly prefers flat interfaces, ie. like the design of Notion. The problem I see in this github redesign has nothing to do with the fact that it's flat. It's tougher to use because it's just bad design. The three columns make it insanely den…

No, it's not nostalgia, goddammit. It's because it contains good visual affordances. Skeumorphism isn't pretty, but it works because our eyes are naturally trained to perceive the visual hints. Our eyes are trained to subconsciously perceive depth via shadows. To perceive clear edges and group things by them.

I really, really hate that 99% of all UX designers are basically graphic designers who are good with visual flourish but without the tiniest bit of interest into half a century worth of HCI research into what makes interfaces visually easy to read. So they end up with whatever graphical look is hip without understanding the usability consequences. That may make a page look good as a whole in the "conforms to current graphic design trends", but it destroys the ability to organize the individual elements.

EDIT: Also, skeuomorphism when done right can be pretty, and if you really want you can still combine it "flat" design by using hints of shadows and depth for better readability - look at games like Snake Bird for examples of that. In general I agree with Bret Victor that the best place to look for good interface design these days is successful computer games, because if it doesn't feel right to play (that is: interact) with, the designers tend to throw it out, and it is the most likely place to see experimental interface design.

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#219
> Commits often touch files for completely arbitrary reasons, so the last commit tells you almost nothing. I can’t think of any case when somebody would need that particular information

You sir are using git in a very wrong way it seems. Its not dropbox, you get to decide and see exactly what changed and why. Not just do a `git add .; git commit; git push`

Re: Redesigning GitHub Repository Page

#220
post #17

> If you are a programmer, you might be surprised but other people normally don’t like hierarchies. Nested structures are hard to grasp, remember, navigate, and grouping is very often non-intuitive. Nested tabs are one of the worst UI patterns out there. GitHub is primarily a development tool, so it should be designed for developers. Hierarchies align very well with development tasks, so it's natural to use them for…

I’m a big fan of nested hierarchies. But hierarchies only work when they are logical. And on GitHub they patently aren’t: For instance, I’ve got to search for the Releases tab every single time. Its placement below “Code” makes no sense whatsoever. And even though I know this, I’m still disorientated every time. The same is true for some of the other tabs. I agree with you about the Issues and PR tabs, but I think it’s still a better solution to flatten the hierarchy and simply pull these two tabs to the left, directly after “Code”.
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