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Why our website looks like an operating system

posthog.com

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Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#171

Post by knuckleheads »

hliyan wrote: post #161
knuckleheads wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall right, they have most everything in the same CMS, in particular their discussion/help forum is integrated into their main site. To me, that's what the difference is, having done similar work in the past. They have a unified and singular control over the content on their front page. It's not a dozen groups obviously jockeying for control of who gets to be higher on the page or featured more prominently, or…

Yes. That reminds me of another thing: no landing pages for each level of menu. If I go to Docs > Surveys, I can skip the overview and go directly to Features > Conditional questions. I dont' need to load an entire page with a giant banner of people smiling, and a call to action button that wants me to contact them before I have read through the functionality.

if, by way of totally random example, each feature team within each department measures how much revenue and how many customers come because of a specific feature that team is working on and responsibly, and that feature team's pm is compensated based on these metrics, then naturally each team will want to bloat the landing space on the front page areas as much as possible. very hard to make something that presents as cohesively as this when incentives of those involved are in competition with one another.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#172

Post by hliyan »

ironmagma wrote: post #167
hliyan wrote: post #149

Why this feels so incredibly appealing compared to prevailing designs is probably something for a psychologist / cognitive scientist / neurologist (?) to answer -- there is certainly something here that warrants better study than what we in the software industry do in rushed blog posts. But I can personally speak to at least one aspect, having worked for a company that does high end web sites and strategy for large S…

This is definitely a surprising opinion to find on HN. Usually the prevailing thought is that anything that is even remotely heavy on JavaScript is bad design and therefore inherently unusable, unportable, etc. Whereas this is essentially JavaScript maximalism.

I write a lot of code myself and am usually against indiscriminate use of JS (so much so that I now recommend old fashioned server side templates over SPAs unless there is a good reason). But for this comment, I was donning my other hat: that of an executive with whom the decision to adopt (and pay for) a product usually rests. The bulk of a SaaS company's marketing budget goes to attracting and retaining the attention of such people, and ultimately getting them to pay. I feel this site does a good job of that without wasting my time.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#173

Post by __padding »

This is a pet peeve of mine - but with a phone with a small display (eg iPhone 12 mini) it feels like 1/3rd of the screen is taken up with ‘menu bars/banners’ between browser url bar/site nav bars/bottom banner i can’t dismiss about talking to an AI

This is even worse on pages like the about page where it feels like only 1/3rd of the screen is available for scrolling/reading text; it just feel totally hostile to browse.

“Please won’t someone think of the children” s/children/those of us with small hands and correspondingly small phone screens/

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#174

Post by acka »

- I open the link in a mobile browser.

- A cookie banner fills 95% of the screen.

- No accept, deny, customize, or close button in sight, and no, I am not going to switch to desktop mode or adjust my text size to something submicroscopic just to dismiss a stupid cookie banner.

Sorry guys, but that means a hard pass from me. Let the downvotes rain, but it is what it is.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#175

Post by notachatbot123 »

odie5533 wrote: post #165
fmbb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like things the way they were before the law, just answer yes to all cookie banners you see. It does not take time if you don’t care to read it. Yours click yes, and they will remember you want to be tracked.

How many billions of human hours of productivity have we collectively wasted with these cookie banners?

Most probably magnitudes less than those wasted on advertisement and the resulting unnecessary purchases.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#176

Post by hliyan »

knuckleheads wrote: post #171
hliyan wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That reminds me of another thing: no landing pages for each level of menu. If I go to Docs > Surveys, I can skip the overview and go directly to Features > Conditional questions. I dont' need to load an entire page with a giant banner of people smiling, and a call to action button that wants me to contact them before I have read through the functionality.

if, by way of totally random example, each feature team within each department measures how much revenue and how many customers come because of a specific feature that team is working on and responsibly, and that feature team's pm is compensated based on these metrics, then naturally each team will want to bloat the landing space on the front page areas as much as possible. very hard to make something that presents a…

Agreed. Conway's Law. Every time I ever fought that law, the law won.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#177

Post by stevesimmons »

odie5533 wrote: post #165
fmbb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like things the way they were before the law, just answer yes to all cookie banners you see. It does not take time if you don’t care to read it. Yours click yes, and they will remember you want to be tracked.

How many billions of human hours of productivity have we collectively wasted with these cookie banners?

Always remember it is the web site owner who chose to waste your time.

The more obnoxious the cookie banner, the quicker you can conclude "I didn't really need to visit your site anyway".

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#178

Post by internet_points »

Retr0id wrote: post #33

> Legally-required cookie banner > PostHog.com doesn't use third-party cookies, only a single in-house cookie You're legally required to let me opt out of that cookie. Unless it's essential to the site functionality, in which case you don't need the banner at all.

Could it be that they actually did not know that they don't need to show a banner if there is no third party cookie?

Or that this is their way of bragging that they don't use third-party cookies?

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#179

Post by troupo »

9rx wrote: post #123
shaan7 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it baffles me that a lot of people would rather not have the option to reject cookies. Its weird to say "I don't want to stop a website tracking me because the UX is terrible. I'd rather get tracked instead.". Of course, it would be better if the UX were even better, but I'd rather take something over nothing.

> Yep, it baffles me that a lot of people would rather not have the option to reject cookies. Back in the day browsers offered this natively. When the advertising companies started building browsers there was a lot of incentive to see that go by the wayside of course... But the earlier comment isn't saying that you shouldn't have options, rather that the law needs to be more specific, such as requiring browsers to wo…

> that the law needs to be more specific, such as requiring browsers to work in coordination with website operators

1. The law isn't about browsers or websites. It equally applies to all tracking. E.g. in apps. Or in physical stores.

2. The world's largest advertising company could do all you describe. And they do work with websites. First by repackaging tracking through FLoC. Then by just simply repackaging tracking and calling it privacy: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1664682689591377923

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#180

Post by pembrook »

Retr0id wrote: post #33

> Legally-required cookie banner > PostHog.com doesn't use third-party cookies, only a single in-house cookie You're legally required to let me opt out of that cookie. Unless it's essential to the site functionality, in which case you don't need the banner at all.

Ahh yes. HN’s favorite debate.

Where people who’ve never started a company or spoken to a lawyer about GDPR, the ePrivacy directive, the schrems rulings, etc but just emotionally love idea of what they think it represents (but actually doesn’t), debate with normal sane people.

All I can say is, I’m getting really tired of this one guys.

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