Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#1

Post by troupo » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:05 PM UTC

Just yesterday I tried to find examples of good high information density UIs... and seems to be an impossible task.

Search engines are full to the brim with vague articles repeating each other's talking points, and exception being this blog post by Matthew Ström: https://matthewstrom.com/writing/ui-density/

Image search is no better, with largely irrelevant results.

In the age when everything is spaced out and zoned out gray on gray, what are your go-to examples of UIs that pack a lot of info?

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#2

Post by MrCoffee7 » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

News aggregators: https://sciurls.com https://techurls.com https://mathurls.com https://devurls.com https://skimfeed.com https://hackurls.com

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#3

Post by nottorp » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

> Search engines are full to the brim with vague articles repeating each other's talking points

You just described the modern search experience on any topic.

As much as I hate it, i'd suggest asking a few "AI"s and trying Kagi.

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#4

Post by coffeeindex » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

I recall seeing some discussion about the UI density Japanese websites (specifically Japanese news sites). For example: https://www.asahi.com/ Now that I think about it, news sites in general have fairly high density UIs, not that I consider them to be shining examples of great UIs. https://www.yahoo.com https://www.bloomberg.com/

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#5

Post by MrCoffee7 » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

sites that allow you to build your own list of weblinks such as https://start.me , eg. here is a specific example https://start.me/p/GEQXv7/osint-us

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#6

Post by seanhunter » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:49 PM UTC

Bloomberg is the obvious example.

It is an extremely well-designed and effective high-information density UI designed to be very efficient to use but requiring some skills to get the most out of it.

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#7

Post by fauria » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

Command line system monitoring tools like htop, atop, btop, etc: https://static.linuxblog.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/btop....

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#8

Post by dejobaan » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:52 PM UTC

I always thought video games were a good thing to look at here. They're NOT always an appropriate reference (being an entertainment medium), but you often have to get a pile of info up on the screen, legible, quickly. The Game UI Database is pretty cool, with 1300-ish games: https://www.gameuidatabase.com

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#9

Post by mg » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:53 PM UTC

I am developing this project, which replaces product lists with what I call "product charts":

https://www.productchart.com

The idea is to sort products not by one parameter (like price or release date) but by two - which creates an x/y chart. The product info is displayed dynamically - by default only the image is show. On hover, more info is displayed in a tooltip. And when you click "details", all data is shown.

This way, 300 products easily fit on the screen.

You need to watch it on a monitor to see the chart interface. On mobile, I just display a normal list.

Re: Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?

#10

Post by w4rh4wk5 » Thu, May 08, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

Tracy [1] is the first thing that comes to my mind, then RenderDoc [2].

After that Visual Studio while debugging. In general, I think graphical debuggers and profiling tools do a relatively good job of packing lots of information into many, small windows.

[1] https://github.com/wolfpld/tracy

[2] https://github.com/baldurk/renderdoc