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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)?

#352

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…

That's great! An API for the filters would be nice so i could bookmark it.

Thanks! By API, do you mean you'd like to have bookmarkable filters so you can always return to a particular view?

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

#353
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…

Renoise is a DAW with a very high density tracker UI that I think works well. It is a bit friendlier to new users than any oldschool tracker I have tried to use.

https://www.renoise.com/products/renoise

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

#354
I find the imgui UIs to be very high density (https://github.com/ocornut/imgui and the gallery issues) See for example the tracy profiler: https://github.com/wolfpld/tracy. It seems the game dev community has pretty powerful tools to understand and interrogate their work.

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

#356
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…

DAWs and audio plugins are a good example. Digital audio workstations can be somewhat varied in UI, but plugins can be vastly different from each other even for two of the same tools.

Creating intuitive interfaces for complex technical controls is challenging. Fabfilter has been a popular developer for years. Oeksound and Denise Audio are great examples too. Newfangled Audio makes good stuff and their limiter elevate handles multiple pages well. They all pack parameters into tight, cohesive UIs that look good and remain intuitive.

Fabfilter often uses submenus that can feel convoluted, but they're arguably necessary given their plugin's depth. Denise Audio takes a different approach with standard, simple UIs across their product line. Everything is visible with no submenus, though they may offer fewer controls overall.

Deciding what controls to expose and how to organize them intuitively presents a unique challenge. Multiple pages like how Newfangled does it works well. I don't find Fabfilter's submenus to be the best but that's often because they are unlabeled and use small, unique icons that are hard to grok. The overall UI for primary features is usually quite good though.

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

#357
Rock Auto has a fantastic to use website. It uses a very intuitive tree based representation and has search that actually works. It also shows you if a part is going to be shipped from the same warehouse as another part in your cart so you can save on shipping.

rockauto.com

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

#358

For weather data, I'm partial to Wunderground's 10-Day forecast[0] view. In one component you can see temp highs/lows, precipitation, cloud cover, humidity, wind speed, etc. by the hour, for the next week. Full disclosure: I worked on this as a junior engineer, the lead engineer was fantastic. The code hasn't changed in 10+ years. [0] https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/ca/san-francisco/37...

This page view is invaluable to me for various reasons. I have been viewing it every day for years. Thank you for your work.
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