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

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

#172

I'm working on a Hacker News front page with the idea of UI density as a foundational concept. https://hcker.news I haven't did a Show HN yet but I'd love to get some feedback on it first. It's got a lot of configurable views and can be made extremely dense (dense mode on + columns: auto). The aesthetic itself was made to deviate as little from the HN frontpage as possible. It's got a lot of filtering knick knacks li…

The official HN front page is already pretty good on UI density, so it’s promising that you’re using that as a starting point. Is there any chance https://hcker.news is related to https://hckrnews.com ? The dense layout feels similar.

I haven't set up my about page yet but I was going to attribute much my design to their page. I've taken a ton of inspiration from hckernews.com because it's the front page I always frequented prior to making this. My primary issue with it was that I wanted more sorting capabilities (aggregate mode), and wanted to be able to see the highest engagement threads (by comments).

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

#173

I worked on software for doctors to use at clinics for a while and hands down those programs have some of the most information dense UIs I have ever seen. Doctors want everything possible on a single screen, it's wild Unfortunately I don't really know how to get screenshots or examples for you, given the nature of healthcare data privacy and such But I would suggest searching around and seeing what you can find for c…

This is a great example!

In the UK, most GPs use SystmOne. Some screenshots:

https://support-s1.ardens.org.uk/support/solutions/articles/...

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

#174
post #9

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. Th…

I wonder if you can help the user move between a 'must have' filter (like on the left) and a looser 'pefer' filter, like choosing an area of the chart (like Select in paint apps.) Maybe it could be as simple as changing the checkmark/slider options to have 3 values: null, must, prefer. For example, check a few CPUs as your required spec, but also a few others as the prefered.

Like/dislike might be a better description. Then make the chart show color or size to indicate the preferences.

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

#175
post #40
post #17

Look for tracing/profiling/binary analysis UIs: - https://superuser.com/questions/1117466/using-windows-perfor... - https://github.com/wolfpld/tracy - https://github.com/WerWolv/ImHex 3D modeling / CAD software: - Blender/Rhino etc - Similar for audio you can search for 'DAWs' ( https://blog.landr.com/best-daw/ ) Many examples on https://x.com/usgraphics/media only some software. Not on the data side but can be usefu…

Agree on DAWs. Even though I'm familiar with the general concepts, every time I try out a new one (Logic, Reaper, Ableton), it's quite overwhelming at first. You have a pretty good idea about what's supposed to be there, but the sheer amount of knobs and buttons... But once you get in the flow, you quickly find out it has all the information you need, nothing more nothing less, it becomes second nature. (Notable omis…

Ardour has really good default settings.

Another, maybe forgotten one is Wavosaur on Windows [1]. Great modularity, one can quickly remove cruft that's not needed, or add a lot of data on waveforms when necessary. I admit being a fan of the Classic Windows era UIs, though. :)

A third, also forgotten one from the Win2k/9x GUI era is maybe Waveshop [2], also a great example of keeping things simple.

Funny thing: I used Reaper for years (occasional pro-level radio production), then had to switch to Pro Tools because of studio demands. Afterwards tried going with Reaper again, but got really overwhelmed with all those endless possibilities for customization. So... I ended up using Ardour, which was easiest to grasp from day one. Really well thought out and polished GUI. Possibly a great example of why it makes sense to have a subscription/payment based, non-free open source project.

Oh, and Audacity up to version 1.26 was also great. After 2.x, it started to add bloat IMO. I remember Eric S. Raymond highlighted it as a great example of modular, unix-y design in "The Art of Unix Programming" [3].

1: https://www.wavosaur.com/

2: https://victimofleisure.github.io/WaveShop/

3: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch06s01.html#aud...

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to go against the crowd and say that I prefer DigiKey and Mouser's sites over McMaster. The filter/apply pattern they use when trying to narrow things down is a lot quicker than waiting for Mcmaster's auto updating window. Usually, when I'm looking for something, it's not for an exact specific item, but to know what options are even there in the first place. Selecting ranges of things in McMaster has always…

I think everything McMaster dates to it being a physical book first. They still operate on that same business model, but we have the internet now. The supplied product might change, but it still meets whatever specification is in the catalog that is released yearly. If they could guarantee a TI-83 Plus was what you were going to get they would have put it in the catalog, but they couldn't so they don't. And they STIL…

Oh yeah, the books are impressive in their own right. However many items you think they sell looking at the website, the book reveals you were a couple orders of magnitudes off. 1000+ bible-thin pages of well laid out tables and product photos. It's pretty much what the website would look without any filtering of the items.

The books are fun to leaf through on occasion, or if you need to take up an extra 3 inches on your bookshelf with something yellow. If you have one, it makes you feel like a real engineer. But I greatly prefer the website.

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

#178
I'm building my own (for news):

https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/114356066459105122> and https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/e919db600cb8013eb7b844...> show screenshots and describe the interface.

It's a locally-hosted, personal system, updated manually via shell scripts. The prototype is based off of CNN's "lite" headlines page (https://lite.cnn.com/>), which presents 100 headlines in an unorganised fashion without context.

My first cut simply organised the headlines by section and date. The version linked above includes several lede 'graphs for each article, along with some other formatting. It runs about 15 or so screens on either my desktop or mobile (large-format tablet) devices.

I'm looking at extending the concept to other / additional news sources, largely as CNN's article offerings are disappointingly irrelevant. (Discussed in the Diaspora* thread.)

Features I'm thinking of adding include:

- Bayesian ordering by significance. (This will be based on my own article judgements used as training data.)

- A "best of the interval" capability.

- Adding in articles from several alternative sources. The Guardian will likely be the baseline given its well-structured nature, reasonably comprehensive news, and lack of a paywall. There are likely a few other sources I'll add. I'd like to include weather and perhaps some business ticker data as well. I've had previous ideas about a "news dashboard" which tracks significant indicators, and would like to try applying several of those concepts, if my coding chops are up to it.

- Possibly a bit of visual flash, though from what I'm observing, virtually all graphics used on news sites are more distraction than value.

- Incorporating eInk-Mode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43690828>

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

#179
post #159
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still hoping that one day we get an open source image editing application to the level of Photoshop (and for Darktable to become as good as Aperture / Lightroom). One of the things that Blender did right is adhering to industry standards, especially keybinds. When Blender did their huge UI rework they decided to normalize to the keybinds of its closed-source competitors, along with some of the workflows. Meanwhi…

What the heck happened to Photoshop and Illustrator (and the whole Adobe suite)? They monochromed all of their icons and removed most of their text and tooltips. As a casual user, I used to be able to use their tools fairly proficiently, but now I find them virtually unusable.

GIMP did this too.

Bless Irfanview and Inkscape for having color icons still...

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