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Hacker News Redesign

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Re: Hacker News Redesign

#131

Post by leejw00t354 »

SeoxyS wrote: post #12

I'm sorry, but this is a perfect example of the difference between design and eye candy. Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design school, when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading psdtuts.com. The difference is that style is only skin-deep. It's superficial. It's an added bonus on top of design . Design, on the other hand, is the core of the product: how it functions…

Although I agree with what you're saying sometimes spending more time on eye candy than the actual design can be useful.

Eye candy doesn't help the user with navigation or add functionality but it can make a website look more professional and in-turn more trustworthy.

For e commerce websites getting the users trust is an important consideration and I'd argue eye candy is maybe just as important as the design.

Of course in the case of Hacker News I wouldn't like to see this kind of redesign implemented and would prefer the focus of the site's design to be solely on improving it's functionality and usability.

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#134

Post by hxa7241 »

iamjonlee wrote: post #110
SeoxyS wrote: post #12

I'm sorry, but this is a perfect example of the difference between design and eye candy. Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design school, when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading psdtuts.com. The difference is that style is only skin-deep. It's superficial. It's an added bonus on top of design . Design, on the other hand, is the core of the product: how it functions…

Here's what I think should have been done: LINK http://www.grooovy.me/HN.jpg Here are some thoughts on why I made mine this way: 1) Hacker news is read by hundred of thousands of people every month- to adapt to a completely new design would wreck the user experience the users have come to expect. 2) Your patterns and icons, while I appreciate the gesture takes focus away from the headlines. The most important thing s…

> 3

The main text is too light and low-contrast: it looks like it is frightened of being there and trying to run away and hide! (and so the most big and powerful thing on the page is the footer, which does not seem the right priority...)

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#135

Post by hxa7241 »

SeoxyS wrote: post #12

I'm sorry, but this is a perfect example of the difference between design and eye candy. Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design school, when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading psdtuts.com. The difference is that style is only skin-deep. It's superficial. It's an added bonus on top of design . Design, on the other hand, is the core of the product: how it functions…

Fine, yes, functionally -- and that is probably the most important thing -- but not really so interesting for speculative discussion.

It works, but seems to subtract more than it adds. It looks a little less like itself, and a little more like every other site.

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#136

Post by dhimes »

SeoxyS wrote: post #12

I'm sorry, but this is a perfect example of the difference between design and eye candy. Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design school, when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading psdtuts.com. The difference is that style is only skin-deep. It's superficial. It's an added bonus on top of design . Design, on the other hand, is the core of the product: how it functions…

How can you criticize the design, then, without taking it for a drive to test the functionality? I think this guy got it pretty damn well. I've seen other submissions on this page, including the one you link to, that fail in a major way: the damn up/down buttons. I don't know where the down buttons are going to go, but the current ones (and your linked ones) are too small and close together. On a small screen or with a clumsy (read: touch) interface they are very difficult to use. Designs that preserve them FAIL badly- not because they look bad, but for the very reasons you state: the function suffers for the looks.

And what's the point of the huge margins on the one you linked to? Can't we make better use of the space somehow?

I think the OP has a helluva nice looking start to a website redesign, and I hope he doesn't get discouraged from the hivemind criticism I'm seeing on this page.

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#138

Post by primigenus »

treyp wrote: post #83
waxjar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is the stylesheet: https://github.com/Primigenus/Cleaner-Hacker-News .

i've been trying out some of the hacker news style extensions, and this one suffers from the same problem as the others -- when you're reading comments, and the comments are centered without a background color for the content div, you can't figure out how deeply nested comments are. it makes it difficult to figure out which comments are top level and which are responses.

That's a good point that's worth addressing. What do you suggest? Left-aligning the content to the window border or something else? Pull requests to the repo on github welcome!

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#139

Post by primigenus »

SeoxyS wrote: post #12

I'm sorry, but this is a perfect example of the difference between design and eye candy. Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design school, when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading psdtuts.com. The difference is that style is only skin-deep. It's superficial. It's an added bonus on top of design . Design, on the other hand, is the core of the product: how it functions…

Thanks for mentioning Cleaner Hacker News! It's available on Github: https://github.com/primigenus/cleaner-hacker-news - pull requests and forks welcome if you have any concerns or improvements.

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#140

Post by benohear »

I'd like for these redesigns to start by listing:

#1 The problems they are trying to solve

#2 The qualities of the current design they need to preserve.

The discussion could then focus on whether the two lists are valid and how successful the redesign is in solving #1 without fucking up #2.

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