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I am perfectly fine with main UI of HN , that is news.ycombinator.com . Although,i agree that some improvements can be made. One Pro of main UI is that it is s

I am perfectly fine with main UI of HN , that is news.ycombinator.com . Although,i agree that some improvements can be made. One Pro of main UI is that it is simple and very fast without fancy moving parts. I like it a lot.

hliyan 6y ago
I was about to suggest a feature where we could collapse comment replies below a certain vote threshold but then decided against it. It's better to leave the responsibility of scanning through and deciding what to read on the reader themselves, rather than an algorithm. Which is where problems usually begins. At times it's a bit of a pain scanning and scrolling through reams of comments trying to find things I find valuable, but it's better than the alternative, I feel.
- tpxl 6y ago
  Having to expand every single comment in reddit threads is infuriating. The HN UI is just the right amount of information dense and readable for me.
  - aldanor 6y ago
    It's ok because HN is much smaller; on Reddit, there are posts with 20k+ comments - for those, thread collapsing kinda makes sense (which doesn't validate collapsing comment threads everywhere else though).
- 411111111111111 6y ago
  Comments already get marked as dead/hidden if there are too many downvotes I thought? You actually have to go into your profile and enable a checkpoint just to see them at all.
- jsinai 6y ago
  I agreed that it’s better than the alternative. Also the alternative has the risk of amplifying echo chamber viewpoints. And then there is the fundamental of how new would comments break the barrier of getting upvoted in the first place?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Perhaps a small visual indicator that's proportional to upvotes would be helpful, but other than that, I too wouldn't collapse anything automatically. The thing modern web UX trends forget is that human visual system is amazing at pattern-matching and filtering. It's literally what it does all the time - subconsciously sifting through large amounts of data and focusing on things of interest. As long as there are patterns in the data the brain can use to slice and dice it, you can dump a lot of data on people with no confusion or loss of effectiveness.
varrock 6y ago
Indeed; native Hacker News UI is my favorite experience on the web when it comes to discussion. I also enjoy the old Reddit stylesheets. Something about these two designs and their predictability is a joy to use. It's ironic since I love developing front end UI, yet the experiences I enjoy using more are often the most trivial.
tannhaeuser 6y ago
I'd be very cautious with redesigning HN. As a negative example, just look what happened to Slashdot and Reddit. Slashdot's redesign ten years ago in particular seemed really well-done at first, but took away "substance" for lack of a better term, and so did Reddit's. That said, maybe HN could place the logout button further away from the login name/link while preserving info density eg without a fat/dick menu. Right now, these two small touch areas on top of another are mildly prone to mis-clicking on mobile.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Mildly though. Plus everyone is so used to that particular situation now that any change there can hardly go right (e.g. just as many people will hate as like it)
- cik 6y ago
  Digg is still the hallmark of bad redesign to me. It was so bad that it killed the company.
- untitaker_ 6y ago
  A redesign does not have to be ambitious. There are so many things that can be incrementally improved in HN you'll be busy without ever touching the core of the UI like Reddit did. The bar is literally on the floor. A reason those HN readers look like entire rewrites (besides being rewrites) is because they are not dangerous rollouts, and because they have to provide strong reasons to use them as third party sites over the "real" HN.
- corobo 6y ago
  Yeah the only thing I'd change about this site is making pre tags word wrap on mobile Literally it. Please don't break it!
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  The problem with /. wasn't exactly the design. The moderation system and the article ranking algorithm were completely rebuilt too. And both were biased in a direction the community hated (quite explicitly, and since before the change). And the problem with Reddit didn't stop at the design. Yeah, the new site is slow, ugly and hard to use, but the larger issue is that the new design favors video and memes over good content. If not for that point and the lots of on your face growth-hack, I don't think the reaction would be that strong. And none of those despised changes happened by bad luck or technical incompetence. They all come from managerial decisions. The technical act of redesigning can be harmful, but it's not as risky as they examples make it look.
Yajirobe 6y ago
why news.ycombinator? why not news.hacker.com or hackernews.com?
- qznc 6y ago
  Because it is a marketing funnel for ycombinator.
  - Yajirobe 6y ago
    then why call it 'hacker news' colloquially?
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Colloquially? "Hacker News" is its formal name.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      HN, originally called Startup News and later renamed to Hacker News, is a news board hosted by Y Combinator. Hence news.ycombinator.com. There's no hard rule saying that the official name of something has to be 1:1 match to its domain. And sure, YC could move HN to a separate domain, but why bother? Everyone's used to news.ycombinator.com.
- JacobAldridge 6y ago
  It was also originally Startup News, and changed names about (iirc) 12 months later.
awiesenhofer 6y ago
I really like the current ui. Thanks to being so simple and lightweight, HN works perfect even with the "experimental" browser on my Kindle - which is my main and eyestrain-free way of reading HN. Only large discussions with lots of comments can weigh it down, but deactivating JS helps in those cases.
joveian 6y ago
I like being able to easily check hckrnews.com once a day and quickly get a good selection of articles to consider reading. It links to the comment pages directly so that is the same. I've tried to get a couple of local and national news sites to adopt the hckrnews.com format but without success so far :(.
agumonkey 6y ago
It says something about the ratio of technology vs value. old.reddit.com is full of warts (search is limited.. if not crippled), ui has zero fancy ergonomics.. sometimes full fledged bugs.. but the value isn't there. It was simple, flexible, fun, and on nice subs, you had nice convos. The end. hn is still like that, improving secondary aspects won't make the convos better less is more chapter 1209 ps: the only thing that I wished I had in HN was embedded articles .. so I don't comment without reading and I don't have to have a side tab for that. It's a bit lazy but that's the only recurring idea I had about HN.

hliyan 6y ago

I was about to suggest a feature where we could collapse comment replies below a certain vote threshold but then decided against it. It's better to leave the responsibility of scanning through and deciding what to read on the reader themselves, rather than an algorithm. Which is where problems usually begins. At times it's a bit of a pain scanning and scrolling through reams of comments trying to find things I find valuable, but it's better than the alternative, I feel.

tpxl 6y ago
Having to expand every single comment in reddit threads is infuriating. The HN UI is just the right amount of information dense and readable for me.
- aldanor 6y ago
  It's ok because HN is much smaller; on Reddit, there are posts with 20k+ comments - for those, thread collapsing kinda makes sense (which doesn't validate collapsing comment threads everywhere else though).
411111111111111 6y ago
Comments already get marked as dead/hidden if there are too many downvotes I thought? You actually have to go into your profile and enable a checkpoint just to see them at all.
jsinai 6y ago
I agreed that it’s better than the alternative. Also the alternative has the risk of amplifying echo chamber viewpoints. And then there is the fundamental of how new would comments break the barrier of getting upvoted in the first place?
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Perhaps a small visual indicator that's proportional to upvotes would be helpful, but other than that, I too wouldn't collapse anything automatically. The thing modern web UX trends forget is that human visual system is amazing at pattern-matching and filtering. It's literally what it does all the time - subconsciously sifting through large amounts of data and focusing on things of interest. As long as there are patterns in the data the brain can use to slice and dice it, you can dump a lot of data on people with no confusion or loss of effectiveness.

varrock 6y ago

Indeed; native Hacker News UI is my favorite experience on the web when it comes to discussion. I also enjoy the old Reddit stylesheets. Something about these two designs and their predictability is a joy to use. It's ironic since I love developing front end UI, yet the experiences I enjoy using more are often the most trivial.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

I'd be very cautious with redesigning HN. As a negative example, just look what happened to Slashdot and Reddit. Slashdot's redesign ten years ago in particular seemed really well-done at first, but took away "substance" for lack of a better term, and so did Reddit's. That said, maybe HN could place the logout button further away from the login name/link while preserving info density eg without a fat/dick menu. Right now, these two small touch areas on top of another are mildly prone to mis-clicking on mobile.

Aeolun 6y ago
Mildly though. Plus everyone is so used to that particular situation now that any change there can hardly go right (e.g. just as many people will hate as like it)
cik 6y ago
Digg is still the hallmark of bad redesign to me. It was so bad that it killed the company.
untitaker_ 6y ago
A redesign does not have to be ambitious. There are so many things that can be incrementally improved in HN you'll be busy without ever touching the core of the UI like Reddit did. The bar is literally on the floor. A reason those HN readers look like entire rewrites (besides being rewrites) is because they are not dangerous rollouts, and because they have to provide strong reasons to use them as third party sites over the "real" HN.
corobo 6y ago
Yeah the only thing I'd change about this site is making pre tags word wrap on mobile Literally it. Please don't break it!
marcosdumay 6y ago
The problem with /. wasn't exactly the design. The moderation system and the article ranking algorithm were completely rebuilt too. And both were biased in a direction the community hated (quite explicitly, and since before the change). And the problem with Reddit didn't stop at the design. Yeah, the new site is slow, ugly and hard to use, but the larger issue is that the new design favors video and memes over good content. If not for that point and the lots of on your face growth-hack, I don't think the reaction would be that strong. And none of those despised changes happened by bad luck or technical incompetence. They all come from managerial decisions. The technical act of redesigning can be harmful, but it's not as risky as they examples make it look.

Yajirobe 6y ago

why news.ycombinator? why not news.hacker.com or hackernews.com?

qznc 6y ago
Because it is a marketing funnel for ycombinator.
- Yajirobe 6y ago
  then why call it 'hacker news' colloquially?
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Colloquially? "Hacker News" is its formal name.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    HN, originally called Startup News and later renamed to Hacker News, is a news board hosted by Y Combinator. Hence news.ycombinator.com. There's no hard rule saying that the official name of something has to be 1:1 match to its domain. And sure, YC could move HN to a separate domain, but why bother? Everyone's used to news.ycombinator.com.
JacobAldridge 6y ago
It was also originally Startup News, and changed names about (iirc) 12 months later.

awiesenhofer 6y ago

I really like the current ui. Thanks to being so simple and lightweight, HN works perfect even with the "experimental" browser on my Kindle - which is my main and eyestrain-free way of reading HN. Only large discussions with lots of comments can weigh it down, but deactivating JS helps in those cases.

joveian 6y ago

I like being able to easily check hckrnews.com once a day and quickly get a good selection of articles to consider reading. It links to the comment pages directly so that is the same. I've tried to get a couple of local and national news sites to adopt the hckrnews.com format but without success so far :(.

agumonkey 6y ago

It says something about the ratio of technology vs value. old.reddit.com is full of warts (search is limited.. if not crippled), ui has zero fancy ergonomics.. sometimes full fledged bugs.. but the value isn't there. It was simple, flexible, fun, and on nice subs, you had nice convos. The end. hn is still like that, improving secondary aspects won't make the convos better less is more chapter 1209 ps: the only thing that I wished I had in HN was embedded articles .. so I don't comment without reading and I don't have to have a side tab for that. It's a bit lazy but that's the only recurring idea I had about HN.