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I feel similarly about Medium: waning enthusiasm. I only recently got engaged in HackerNews. The UI isn't beautiful. There are minimal features. It's my favori

I feel similarly about Medium: waning enthusiasm. I only recently got engaged in HackerNews. The UI isn't beautiful. There are minimal features. It's my favorite content aggregator right now. Obviously, HN isn't a blogging platform, but it accomplishes many of the things medium is trying to. I wonder if many more partners will give up on medium? Hackernoon is moving away because of a change to medium's advertising policy.

headmelted 8y ago
I'm with medium, but I didn't start there until they allowed for you to use your own domain. If I want to leave I can re-house my content somewhere else and write a script to have the URLs match medium's article identifiers so I don't lose (much) Google-juice. Not ideal, and not a perfect escape plan, but better than leaving all my eggs in one pretentious basket.
- kobiguru 8y ago
  > f I want to leave I can re-house my content somewhere else and write a script to have the URLs match medium's article identifiers so I don't lose Didn't they block it? I read a post here about it some time back. I doubt medium would make you leave it easy.
mrzool 8y ago
> The UI isn't beautiful. I disagree. HN's UI is perfect.
- dhh2106 8y ago
  Perfect and beautiful are two different things. 100% agree that HN's UI is great, but I'm not sure anyone would look at it and say, "oh that's gorgeous." Or at least I wouldn't After all, the purpose of UI is not to be beautiful, but too many people still think it is
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  They could have fixed the overflowing fixed-width blocks on mobile, to be honest :) But I agree with you in every sense.
  - kaybe 8y ago
    It was worse in the past. The last batch of changes improved a lot already.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  Hard disagree. It's barely acceptable on desktop, but on a mobile device it's awful. All the links and buttons are tiny, and they're all so crowded together I frequently end up doing dumb things like tapping "flag" when I meant to tap "discuss." With just a little bit of work HN's UI could be so much better.
  - burger_moon 8y ago
    Seriously I get that they want the 'shit plain look to scare off normal people' schtick but it's also terrible for accessibility. For being a company that beats the inclusive and equality drum they seem to go out of their way to make it impossible for people who don't have incredible dexterity or eyesight to use this site. I love the simple layout but make it accessible to everyone.
    - ozaark 8y ago
      I was going to disagree with you on the sites accessibility but after taking a closer look it is pretty bad, though for different reasons. Tables everywhere, missing alt tags, doc language missing, no form labels.. As far as aesthetics I actually like the current site. It serves its purpose well IMO. The real accessibility issues should be addressed per WCAG.
    - z3t4 8y ago
      try opera mobile browser. it has a nice zoom feature where the text will always word wrap to fit on the screen!
    - koestie 8y ago
      I've been using hn.premii.com for years now ... also available as apps across iOS, Android and Windows UWP. Gives me an optimal reading experience on all my devices, but I'm mostly a lurker so YMMV.
  - jerrytsai 8y ago
    On mobile, try using https://hackerweb.app/ https://hackerweb.app/ A much nicer mobile interface for consuming HN, but you'll have to go direct to the site to interact with it.
- UncleMeat 8y ago
  Tiny buttons that are hard to click on mobile. Markdown that drives people to use block quotes when it isn't needed and make reading quotes a nightmare on mobile. Clicking the back button after replying doesn't show your post. Low contrast difference between background and thread title. The list goes on.
- bhauer 8y ago
  Agreed, it's quite good. Most complaints seem to be focused on mobile. Eh, on mobile I only consume content, so I don't really care if it's hard to post a comment or vote on mobile. Desktop computing is my jam. And any complaints about its appearance on desktop are easy to tune to user preferences using a userscript. I have a simple userscript that changes the color scheme to a dark theme I quickly concocted. (Part of why I don't even bother to contribute on mobile is because mobile platforms are so constrained that a quick and dirty userscript isn't particularly easy to use.)
- codebook 8y ago
  I thought I am viewing different website from yours. I am totally not satisfied hackernews website design and UI.

headmelted 8y ago

I'm with medium, but I didn't start there until they allowed for you to use your own domain. If I want to leave I can re-house my content somewhere else and write a script to have the URLs match medium's article identifiers so I don't lose (much) Google-juice. Not ideal, and not a perfect escape plan, but better than leaving all my eggs in one pretentious basket.

kobiguru 8y ago
> f I want to leave I can re-house my content somewhere else and write a script to have the URLs match medium's article identifiers so I don't lose Didn't they block it? I read a post here about it some time back. I doubt medium would make you leave it easy.

mrzool 8y ago

> The UI isn't beautiful. I disagree. HN's UI is perfect.

dhh2106 8y ago
Perfect and beautiful are two different things. 100% agree that HN's UI is great, but I'm not sure anyone would look at it and say, "oh that's gorgeous." Or at least I wouldn't After all, the purpose of UI is not to be beautiful, but too many people still think it is
heavenlyblue 8y ago
They could have fixed the overflowing fixed-width blocks on mobile, to be honest :) But I agree with you in every sense.
- kaybe 8y ago
  It was worse in the past. The last batch of changes improved a lot already.
smacktoward 8y ago
Hard disagree. It's barely acceptable on desktop, but on a mobile device it's awful. All the links and buttons are tiny, and they're all so crowded together I frequently end up doing dumb things like tapping "flag" when I meant to tap "discuss." With just a little bit of work HN's UI could be so much better.
- burger_moon 8y ago
  Seriously I get that they want the 'shit plain look to scare off normal people' schtick but it's also terrible for accessibility. For being a company that beats the inclusive and equality drum they seem to go out of their way to make it impossible for people who don't have incredible dexterity or eyesight to use this site. I love the simple layout but make it accessible to everyone.
  - ozaark 8y ago
    I was going to disagree with you on the sites accessibility but after taking a closer look it is pretty bad, though for different reasons. Tables everywhere, missing alt tags, doc language missing, no form labels.. As far as aesthetics I actually like the current site. It serves its purpose well IMO. The real accessibility issues should be addressed per WCAG.
  - z3t4 8y ago
    try opera mobile browser. it has a nice zoom feature where the text will always word wrap to fit on the screen!
  - koestie 8y ago
    I've been using hn.premii.com for years now ... also available as apps across iOS, Android and Windows UWP. Gives me an optimal reading experience on all my devices, but I'm mostly a lurker so YMMV.
- jerrytsai 8y ago
  On mobile, try using https://hackerweb.app/ https://hackerweb.app/ A much nicer mobile interface for consuming HN, but you'll have to go direct to the site to interact with it.
UncleMeat 8y ago
Tiny buttons that are hard to click on mobile. Markdown that drives people to use block quotes when it isn't needed and make reading quotes a nightmare on mobile. Clicking the back button after replying doesn't show your post. Low contrast difference between background and thread title. The list goes on.
bhauer 8y ago
Agreed, it's quite good. Most complaints seem to be focused on mobile. Eh, on mobile I only consume content, so I don't really care if it's hard to post a comment or vote on mobile. Desktop computing is my jam. And any complaints about its appearance on desktop are easy to tune to user preferences using a userscript. I have a simple userscript that changes the color scheme to a dark theme I quickly concocted. (Part of why I don't even bother to contribute on mobile is because mobile platforms are so constrained that a quick and dirty userscript isn't particularly easy to use.)
codebook 8y ago
I thought I am viewing different website from yours. I am totally not satisfied hackernews website design and UI.