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“12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

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Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#11

Post by cabalamat »

elorant wrote: post #5
pavlov wrote: post #3

"Finished" is the right word. Apart from small UI tweaks it's still the same site as in 2007... And that's part of what makes HN great! I can't help but think that a team of Very Serious Expensive UX Professionals would have made a mess of HN thrice over by this time. (Can't you just imagine the 2010 rewrite in Java and GWT, and the 2014 redesign as an Angular SPA with sophisticated giant web fonts all over the place…

Well just look at the recent Reddit redesign. It made the site much slower without adding any apparent improvement to usability.

When they did the redesign, the first thing I did was Google on how to get the old interface back. That, and some custom CSS, means I get to see Reddit how I like it.

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#12

Post by cabalamat »

asaph wrote: post #8
pavlov wrote: post #3

"Finished" is the right word. Apart from small UI tweaks it's still the same site as in 2007... And that's part of what makes HN great! I can't help but think that a team of Very Serious Expensive UX Professionals would have made a mess of HN thrice over by this time. (Can't you just imagine the 2010 rewrite in Java and GWT, and the 2014 redesign as an Angular SPA with sophisticated giant web fonts all over the place…

I for one would like to see some improvements. Here is my wishlist: 1. Markdown support 2. More profile capabilities. e.g. avatars, vanity URLs, link to your GitHub, Twitter, Stack Overflow, blog, etc. 3. Automatically create cache link for articles in case their hosts go down after being linked from HN. 4. Revision history for comments.

Markdown support would certainly be useful for longer comments.

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#13

Post by jermaink »

HN is a perfect example of an classic, evergreen product. Or call it a crocodile product, as crocodiles are somewhat location-loyal.

Are there more examples of products that did (on purpose) not change significantly?

If you consider the sentiment on the recent GMail redesign, Facebook, .. it often appears that product managers are the only ones that want to change the product and its appeal. I think Reddit also had the crocodile concept for long time. Google‘s main search page changed minor since the past 10 years. I guess there are more examples (Quora, Craigslist, Wikipedia..?)

@pavlov your examples capture the could-be quite well.

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#14

Post by brightball »

pavlov wrote: post #3

"Finished" is the right word. Apart from small UI tweaks it's still the same site as in 2007... And that's part of what makes HN great! I can't help but think that a team of Very Serious Expensive UX Professionals would have made a mess of HN thrice over by this time. (Can't you just imagine the 2010 rewrite in Java and GWT, and the 2014 redesign as an Angular SPA with sophisticated giant web fonts all over the place…

It really is so much better without all of the "modern" cruft.

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#15

Post by leemailll »

anjc wrote: post #10
asaph wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one would like to see some improvements. Here is my wishlist: 1. Markdown support 2. More profile capabilities. e.g. avatars, vanity URLs, link to your GitHub, Twitter, Stack Overflow, blog, etc. 3. Automatically create cache link for articles in case their hosts go down after being linked from HN. 4. Revision history for comments.

Avatars! Just use Reddit..?

I never get the idea for avatars. And in fact I more than often use Adblock to block any of those on the websites I visit frequently. Can any one shed the light on why they like it?

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#16

Post by LandR »

alzoid wrote: post #4
pavlov wrote: post #3

"Finished" is the right word. Apart from small UI tweaks it's still the same site as in 2007... And that's part of what makes HN great! I can't help but think that a team of Very Serious Expensive UX Professionals would have made a mess of HN thrice over by this time. (Can't you just imagine the 2010 rewrite in Java and GWT, and the 2014 redesign as an Angular SPA with sophisticated giant web fonts all over the place…

I agree. The only changes I would make to the UX is a larger font by default and make the visited links a different colour. I find it hard to easily see what I visited when looking at the list.

I have to browse HN at 150% magnification but it zooms really well, since it's basically just text. The dark theme makes clicked on links pretty obvious, grey vs white.

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#17

Post by asaph »

leemailll wrote: post #15
anjc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avatars! Just use Reddit..?

I never get the idea for avatars. And in fact I more than often use Adblock to block any of those on the websites I visit frequently. Can any one shed the light on why they like it?

It's a way to personalize your account and a way for people to easily recognize an online identity across comments, articles and communities. It helps you discover that @asaph on HN is the same person as @asaph on GitHub, Twitter, Stack Overflow, etc.

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#18

Post by 0xcoffee »

asaph wrote: post #8
pavlov wrote: post #3

"Finished" is the right word. Apart from small UI tweaks it's still the same site as in 2007... And that's part of what makes HN great! I can't help but think that a team of Very Serious Expensive UX Professionals would have made a mess of HN thrice over by this time. (Can't you just imagine the 2010 rewrite in Java and GWT, and the 2014 redesign as an Angular SPA with sophisticated giant web fonts all over the place…

I for one would like to see some improvements. Here is my wishlist: 1. Markdown support 2. More profile capabilities. e.g. avatars, vanity URLs, link to your GitHub, Twitter, Stack Overflow, blog, etc. 3. Automatically create cache link for articles in case their hosts go down after being linked from HN. 4. Revision history for comments.

And an easier way to collapse comments on mobile

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#19

Post by woofcat »

leemailll wrote: post #15
anjc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avatars! Just use Reddit..?

I never get the idea for avatars. And in fact I more than often use Adblock to block any of those on the websites I visit frequently. Can any one shed the light on why they like it?

The only real selling point is it allows you to distinguish users apart from one another really quickly in a threaded conversation.

Sometimes someone other than the original commentator replies and unless you're paying attention to the user names you may make a presumption based on assuming they're the same person.

Re: “12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News”

#20

Post by Scarblac »

jermaink wrote: post #13

HN is a perfect example of an classic, evergreen product. Or call it a crocodile product, as crocodiles are somewhat location-loyal. Are there more examples of products that did (on purpose) not change significantly? If you consider the sentiment on the recent GMail redesign, Facebook, .. it often appears that product managers are the only ones that want to change the product and its appeal. I think Reddit also had t…

In the Netherlands an early very (1998) popular web page is http://www.startpagina.nl , and it's still popular with non-tech savvy people. http://www.nu.nl (1999) is the country's most popular news page, http://www.marktplaats.nl (1999) the most popular Craig's list / Ebay equivalent.

They have all tweaked their UI over two decades if you look closely but make sure they look more or less the same as ever.

Actually Teletext ( https://nos.nl/teletekst ) is still used by many and it looks exactly like it does on TV.

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