Codecademy - how not to do a redesign • Hacker News Board

Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#1

Post by MichalBures » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 2:25 AM UTC

Some thoughts about the recent redesign of Codecademy's courses page

Codecademy - how not to do a redesign
michalbures.com

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#2

Post by jsavimbi » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 3:22 AM UTC

You're right, the redesign looks shoddy and inconsistent with modern layout conventions. Truth be told, they probably didn't hire a designer to do the work.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#3

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 3:28 AM UTC

FTA> "You could say it isn't such a big deal. But if they don't care about this what else they don't care about? Quality of the courses? User experience?"

This entire line of thinking really bugs the ever-loving crap out of me. Slamming the entire service based on a few misaligned elements? Pedantic much?

Edit*

I'd almost argue that the alignment was by design. Having the "start here" lined up with the middle bar implies that you would "start" by taking some action on that bar, since most of us read left to right. In this case, a bad cue. By breaking up that line, you cease going right and look down instead.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#4

Post by twog » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 3:30 AM UTC

jsavimbi wrote: post #2

You're right, the redesign looks shoddy and inconsistent with modern layout conventions. Truth be told, they probably didn't hire a designer to do the work.

They actually have a really awesome designer, http://allisonhou.se/, who is the lead designer there.

I personally love the redesign.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#5

Post by tomcreighton » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 3:57 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #3

FTA> "You could say it isn't such a big deal. But if they don't care about this what else they don't care about? Quality of the courses? User experience?" This entire line of thinking really bugs the ever-loving crap out of me. Slamming the entire service based on a few misaligned elements? Pedantic much? Edit* I'd almost argue that the alignment was by design. Having the "start here" lined up with the middle bar imp…

He's not slamming the entire service, he's slamming the redesign, and rightly so. The entire purpose of the site is to teach - and the changes to the design have obfuscated what course you're supposed to take next. The design is objectively not working as well as it could.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#6

Post by jsavimbi » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 3:59 AM UTC

twog wrote: post #4

jsavimbi wrote: post #2

You're right, the redesign looks shoddy and inconsistent with modern layout conventions. Truth be told, they probably didn't hire a designer to do the work.

They actually have a really awesome designer, http://allisonhou.se/ , who is the lead designer there. I personally love the redesign.

No, they actually do not.

The visual design is poor enough, not to mention the actual code implementation but the interface itself is even more disjointed and incoherent, using a varied mix of metaphorical elements on the view that have no implied structure, hierarchy or continuity. It's as if each part of the view was designed in isolation without regard for the others.

That turkey wasn't ready to come out of the oven.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#7

Post by wyck » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 4:00 AM UTC

It is kinda confusing.

Agree with bad alignments but more importantly there are just to many options that basically do the same thing.

I find this type of page 1000x more useful ( the profile page as well), http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/javascript

Several nice pages makes the cluttered http://www.codecademy.com/courses even more strange, which fails this first metric of UI, KISS.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#8

Post by ramatgan » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 4:02 AM UTC

I absolutely agree, new design is absolutely terrible. Hard to use and understand where the last lesson I left off at.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#9

Post by zds » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 4:03 AM UTC

I'm the cofounder of Codecademy. Unfortunately, there aren't comments allowed on the author's blog so I'll comment here (I'm emailing him as well so hopefully my comment gets posted to his blog).

We've received a lot of feedback on our initial courses page redesign since a soft launch on Saturday. We're working on making it easier for our users to find what's important to them and to discover interesting courses among those available on Codecademy.

I'd love to hear everyone else's feedback - we've been making incremental changes since the launch of the redesign (we work all the time) and we won't stop until it's incredibly easy to find the right courses. As the author mentions, we're starting with gradual changes. Thanks for your patience.

Re: Codecademy - how not to do a redesign

#10

Post by zds » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 4:04 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #3

FTA> "You could say it isn't such a big deal. But if they don't care about this what else they don't care about? Quality of the courses? User experience?" This entire line of thinking really bugs the ever-loving crap out of me. Slamming the entire service based on a few misaligned elements? Pedantic much? Edit* I'd almost argue that the alignment was by design. Having the "start here" lined up with the middle bar imp…

Thanks, Karunamon. We most definitely do care about what's going on the site and that's why we're dedicating so much of our time and attention to making sure the user experience reflects that and is easy for users.

I'd love to hear any other feedback you have. Feel free to email us.