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Hacker News Redesign

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Re: Hacker News Redesign

#41

Post by rmnoon »

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 a friendly critique: using the monetary cost of your education to establish your credibility is not a good idea.

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#43

Post by Teapot »

badusername wrote: post #21

well, it sucks

Yeah. During several years i visited HN from time to time, frowning at the old-school layout. And promptly left. Until one day, i matured enough, and realized that simplicity is elegant.

Though, i dislike the low-contrast browngray background. It's annoying for reading.

Make the layout user-customizable to each login. Let users choose. Is that too hard?

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#45

Post by chevas »

twelvechairs wrote: post #24
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…

Whilst I don't want to pick on the OP, this is such an important point. Its all too often that 'design' gets confused for 'eye candy'. This doesn't just happen on websites, but in all design based professions. And this is a bit of a case in point. The HN audience tends to want high-information-density, not necessarily visual joy (or for that matter extra sugar for clarity of new users). Its a very different thing to…

"As is" is still lacking. Reading these comments across almost the entire width of my monitor is not good design. You do get information density, but my belief is that in the case of reading paragraphs, information density is secondary to readability.

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#46

Post by mortenjorck »

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…

I kept reading down the page hoping to see the reasoning behind the choices made, but was disappointed to find none.

This is why I disagree with the notion that style is only skin-deep. It's an integral part of UX, but only when considered within the framework of UX. The points value is now shaded in 3D: Why? The rank is now an orange circle: How does this help the user?

The best visual design is always based on UX. Do users consult the rank often? If not, the orange should be reserved for something else more demanding of the user's attention. Are the point totals interactive? If not, the 3D shading should be saved for use as an affordance somewhere where there is interaction. It's questions like these that turn a pretty visual design into something that not only looks but works great.

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#47

Post by waxjar »

padenot wrote: post #26
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…

Would you mind sharing the extra stylesheet you mention ?

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

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#48

Post by BryanB55 »

Regardless if you like this design or not, I think HackerNews does need some kind of redesign. I can remember when I first started reading there were a lot of things that just weren't intuitive to me. I always wondered why a site for "hackers" and "coders" seemed so basic in features and looked like something from the 90's. Particularly, the login and password reset seems kind of difficult to use. Is there no RSS feed? How do I know when someone replies to one of my comments? Looking at my profile I have no idea what that stuff is for... "Max visits" "minaway" "delay"... ?? I still don't know what that is. I get the speed and simplicity idea but I think there are some user experience issues that can be solved while still having speed and simplicity.

Maybe I'm the only that feels this way, but just my thoughts. Maybe there is a good reason to the current design?

Re: Hacker News Redesign

#49

Post by mehulkar »

chevas wrote: post #45
twelvechairs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I don't want to pick on the OP, this is such an important point. Its all too often that 'design' gets confused for 'eye candy'. This doesn't just happen on websites, but in all design based professions. And this is a bit of a case in point. The HN audience tends to want high-information-density, not necessarily visual joy (or for that matter extra sugar for clarity of new users). Its a very different thing to…

"As is" is still lacking. Reading these comments across almost the entire width of my monitor is not good design. You do get information density, but my belief is that in the case of reading paragraphs, information density is secondary to readability.

Agreed. That 70 character width rule would be nice on HN.
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