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Introducing the new Google+

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Re: Introducing the new Google+

#271

Post by krapp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #231
krapp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't necessarily considered great design inside either, judging by how popular Hacker News plugins and readers are. But a pretty strong argument can be made that, for sites focused primarily on text and reading, simple layouts may sometimes sometimes be better than complex ones.

HN is kept this way on purpose. That the GenPop doesn't like it is a feature, not a bug. As for designing sites focused on reading, I wholeheartedly agree with this: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com .

> HN is kept this way on purpose. That the GenPop doesn't like it is a feature, not a bug.

The "GenPop" don't even know this site exists and, if they did, would be turned away by the content, not the layout.

That argument is made here often, that somehow liking the plainness of HN's layout is a shibboleth to detect quality users, but i've never really bought into it. Sites like Craigslist, Reddit and 4chan manage to do quite will with relatively simple looks and broader appeal.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#272

Post by phaemon »

leni536 wrote: post #259
phaemon wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost. I agree more with this: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/

>A little less contrast Other than this, I agree. Black on white is fine, and hell no, don't make the background slightly gray. If my display is too bright I turn the brightness down.

Do you dislike the slightly grey background on HN? I can't say I really notice such things.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#273

Post by astral303 »

bhaumik wrote: post #223
XJOKOLAT wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for a damned list ... I mean look at the front of hacker news. Speed. Read.

HN isn't considered great design by majority of users outside this community.

It gets the job done for the audience. It's very fast. There is no clutter.

Therefore it's almost great design. Up/down buttons too close together for reliable use on touch screens (because of the inability to correct a mistap) is what's keeping it one step short of greatness.

Design is experience. Graphic design is almost orthogonal.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#274

Post by TeMPOraL »

krapp wrote: post #271
TeMPOraL wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is kept this way on purpose. That the GenPop doesn't like it is a feature, not a bug. As for designing sites focused on reading, I wholeheartedly agree with this: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com .

> HN is kept this way on purpose. That the GenPop doesn't like it is a feature, not a bug. The "GenPop" don't even know this site exists and, if they did, would be turned away by the content, not the layout. That argument is made here often, that somehow liking the plainness of HN's layout is a shibboleth to detect quality users, but i've never really bought into it. Sites like Craigslist, Reddit and 4chan manage to…

I wasn't really trying to make an argument out of it; I think there's a direct quote from pg floating somewhere that this is one of the reasons HN's design is kept bare-bones. I may be misremembering though.

EDIT: I found one quote:

"So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, repel everyone else. I've made a conscious effort to do this on HN. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. The goal is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there."

http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#275

Post by krapp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #274
krapp wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN is kept this way on purpose. That the GenPop doesn't like it is a feature, not a bug. The "GenPop" don't even know this site exists and, if they did, would be turned away by the content, not the layout. That argument is made here often, that somehow liking the plainness of HN's layout is a shibboleth to detect quality users, but i've never really bought into it. Sites like Craigslist, Reddit and 4chan manage to…

I wasn't really trying to make an argument out of it; I think there's a direct quote from pg floating somewhere that this is one of the reasons HN's design is kept bare-bones. I may be misremembering though. EDIT: I found one quote: "So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a parti…

Fair enough, but even if pg said it I still disagree with the premise, albeit respectfully. You can have a site with a simple layout which features the content without having ugliness be a conscious design principle. The problem lies in the assumption that plain design will "repel" one kind of user, but attract another, I don't believe it does.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#276

Post by TeMPOraL »

krapp wrote: post #275
TeMPOraL wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't really trying to make an argument out of it; I think there's a direct quote from pg floating somewhere that this is one of the reasons HN's design is kept bare-bones. I may be misremembering though. EDIT: I found one quote: "So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a parti…

Fair enough, but even if pg said it I still disagree with the premise, albeit respectfully. You can have a site with a simple layout which features the content without having ugliness be a conscious design principle. The problem lies in the assumption that plain design will "repel" one kind of user, but attract another, I don't believe it does.

> You can have a site with a simple layout which features the content without having ugliness be a conscious design principle.

That I agree 100% with. I too believe that. Hell, I find myself liking simple layouts more than what's the usual startup trend for pretty backgrounds (and background videos; whoever does that deserves to have their Internet access limited to crappy 3G modem with fixed rate of $0.1/MB) and fluff.

Personally, I think HN is actually too simple. Reddit seems uglier, but they have lots of very small features that greatly support discussion on the site. I actually think that the interface for general discussion on-line lies somewhere between HN and Reddit - simple but useful tree-like forum.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#277

Post by sirtastic »

sytelus wrote: post #183
sirtastic wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The card layout is generally big no-no in design community. I disagree-- it would appear to be exactly the opposite if you look at current design trends (checkout dribbble.com), cards look to be a very big yes-yes in the design community. I believe googles implementation of the cards within Google+ very poor UX. If they made each card the same height so your eyes can move about the page more orderly it might make G…

Trending design ≠ efficient design. Lot of me-too designers try to copy what's on popular websites even though it's clearly a wrong approach and that's how bad designs become viral (Jumbotrones is another example which has become viral but has measurably lower engagement metrics). Also many designer falls in to side-by-side measurement trap while what they should be measuring is users engagement metrics. Card layout…

Didn't say it was the right thing to do but that is surely up for debate though it is definitely a current design yes-yes. Personally, I like the card trend. It makes designing for responsive a bit easier and I enjoy the material looks which plays well with "cards'.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#278

Post by dredmorbius »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #251
phaemon wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost. I agree more with this: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/

>"You're a fucking moron if you use default browser styles." >- Eleanor Roosevelt Why are the default styles so bad?

There are two interpretations of your question, which do you mean?

1. What is wrong with leaving HTML completely unstyled and allowing the browser to apply its defaults?

2. Why is it that the default settings applied by (most) browsers are so awful?

The answer to the first is pretty much, as another HNer noted, the topic of the Better Motherfucking Website page. The defaults suck.

Why the defaults suck is ... probably an accident of history that's difficult to undo. Browsers default to no margins and a whole slew of other stuff, and CSS requires that you either start from known defaults or explicitly style each and every element.

If every browser used its own distinct set of deviations-from-default for various entities, CSS would be even more of a hack than it already is.

Some of the fault also surely lies with standards organisations, including the W3C. If they elected for specific defaults to be applied to all pages, and, by some miracle, browser vendors actually adhered to these, you could conceivably have a world in which most Web pages didn't need much if any styling, and where users could choose to apply default styling to pages.

I do this presently via uBlock and uMatrix on desktop, and via ReaderMode on Mobile. I virtually always prefer the simplified, standardised view to a site's native design.

You've asked a simple question, but a deep one.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#279

Post by krapp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #276
krapp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but even if pg said it I still disagree with the premise, albeit respectfully. You can have a site with a simple layout which features the content without having ugliness be a conscious design principle. The problem lies in the assumption that plain design will "repel" one kind of user, but attract another, I don't believe it does.

> You can have a site with a simple layout which features the content without having ugliness be a conscious design principle. That I agree 100% with. I too believe that. Hell, I find myself liking simple layouts more than what's the usual startup trend for pretty backgrounds (and background videos; whoever does that deserves to have their Internet access limited to crappy 3G modem with fixed rate of $0.1/MB) and flu…

One thing i've found odd about HN is that the only really customizable feature for logged in account seems to be the background color of the top bar, after you get enough karma. Just imagine how many complaints people wouldn't be making if they could adjust the default text size, line height or some other colors?

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#280

Post by TeMPOraL »

krapp wrote: post #279
TeMPOraL wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can have a site with a simple layout which features the content without having ugliness be a conscious design principle. That I agree 100% with. I too believe that. Hell, I find myself liking simple layouts more than what's the usual startup trend for pretty backgrounds (and background videos; whoever does that deserves to have their Internet access limited to crappy 3G modem with fixed rate of $0.1/MB) and flu…

One thing i've found odd about HN is that the only really customizable feature for logged in account seems to be the background color of the top bar, after you get enough karma. Just imagine how many complaints people wouldn't be making if they could adjust the default text size, line height or some other colors?

Yeah. I don't really understand why this feature even exists. Maybe it's some artifact of HN's history, pg experimenting with that particular part of HN's engine in Arc or something? Because this and all the other things you've mentioned can be accomplished by user setting up an additional CSS for the website client-side, with an implicit assumption that audience here is generally smart enough to figure out how to do this.

Also, the orange bar is basically the single visual element that makes HN HN, so I don't know why people would even like to customize it...

There's some mystery here.

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