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YC Facelift: Pebble

kyrobeshay.com

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Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#41

Post by scott_s »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #37
pbreit wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling this effort "really dangerous" is a tad hysterical. The current Pebble page is OK, not great. This redesign is an improvement. While it would be nice to hear more about the thought process, etc, t's not always necessary to detail out what can be inferred from observation.

tip: the word "hysterical" is misogynist, having its origin in proto-psychology blaming being overly emotional on disturbance of the womb. i assume you didn't know this when you used it. now you know! 'melodramatic' would work just as well.

"Hysterical" is one of those words that the original meaning has been completely replaced by common usage. I think we can all safely use it without being misogynists. Similarly, I feel safe using the word "idiot" without fear that listeners will assume I am insulting people with mental retardation.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#42

Post by justjimmy »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

For those saying that he shouldn't have to explain his process:

Take a step back and understand the OP's original intention – he wants to improve and showcase his work, he posts on HN for feedback, he wants to strike conversations with those companies.

Will he have a higher chance to achieve those goals if he included his thought process? By including his process (which is something he already done, just needs to upload them), his case would be that much more convincing and impressive – won't that improve the probability of snagging the attention of those he intended?

It's hard to start a conversation with just an image and people going "Oh, looks pretty." It's much more compelling to to take it a step further and include the process, not just for his benefit, but the readers too.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#43

Post by JoelSutherland »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

I disagree. The best way to become better at basketball isn't to play pickup games exclusively. It's also important to engage in deliberate practice on individual skills and micro-skills.

In this case he is turning out several designs a week. This would be impossible if he were diving in completely on each one to understand the problem perfectly. Instead he's making some assumptions about each company and executing against those assumptions.

Perhaps you're just arguing that it is more important to practice the skill of understanding a project instead of the skill of executing a design. I don't really have an opinion on that, but I hardly think this project is dangerous. If anything, internalizing design execution skills will free his mind to think about design projects on a higher level.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#44

Post by dmils4 »

kyro wrote: post #18
justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

Thanks for the feedback. You're not the first to suggest the need to include my reasons for design decisions I've made with these. I'll work on that for the next one.

Kyro - I think it's ridiculous that people are so possessive of free design concepts, but one cool blog post to take a look at is Metalab's theoretical redesign of the Zappos homepage few year's back: http://metalabdesign.com/zappos/

They do a pretty nice job of explaining why and what they did - might be a nice framework if you're planning on justifying your decisions.

I personally find these designs more "fun to look at" than anything - it's always cool to see what and how someone who isn't a part of the day to day sees a product as. To me, these designs are just a super detailed pieces of user feedback. Keep going at it!

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#45

Post by pclark »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

I'm a designer and if I were hiring these blog posts are the best portfolio I can think of. I'd like to see more commentary, but these are a great idea. someone needs to make this a "aaS" business to hire designers or he hired.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#46

Post by gwillis13 »

kyro, I would actually like to see you do a design that doesn't fall into the "web 2.0" trend. Your designs overall are nice, and flows well, but falls in the realm of "template" in my eyes.

Really push the boundary of the design to stand out from the rest.

Also don't take this as all web 2.0 sites are similar, or you can't pull inspiration from them. Just something refreshing to break the mold of mundane would be nice.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#47

Post by va_coder »

replicatorblog wrote: post #26
justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

This is a popular sentiment among designers, but it is equally dangerous. The flash, sizzle, and aesthetics are a HUGE part of design. People make judgements in fractions of seconds, well before they have a chance to experience interactions or any of the deeper level design issues. I've seen three of these redo's on HackerNews and each time the redesign is aesthetically much nicer. Sure there are some things that cou…

This whole thread is getting really dangerous

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#48

Post by cemregr »

dmils4 wrote: post #44
kyro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. You're not the first to suggest the need to include my reasons for design decisions I've made with these. I'll work on that for the next one.

Kyro - I think it's ridiculous that people are so possessive of free design concepts, but one cool blog post to take a look at is Metalab's theoretical redesign of the Zappos homepage few year's back: http://metalabdesign.com/zappos/ They do a pretty nice job of explaining why and what they did - might be a nice framework if you're planning on justifying your decisions. I personally find these designs more "fun to lo…

That page does mention some good design principles, then proceeds to just throw a couple gradients and Gotham on a Photoshop mockup. The HN thread about it discussed at length why it's a weak redesign.
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