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1. Bad Search 2. PDF Files for Online Reading 3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links 4. Non-Scannable Text 5. Fixed Font Size 6. Page Titles With Low S

• dominik 18y ago
  I find myself wishing HN didn't violate 1 and 3.
  • sant0sk1 18y ago
    I don't know what you're talking about when you say HN violates #3 on the list. http://skitch.com/sant0sk1/1sfy/top6 http://skitch.com/sant0sk1/1sfy/top6 Can you guess which stories I've already clicked thru?
    • dlimeb 18y ago
      Yes, but we can't tell which comment threads you've looked at.
      • mojuba 18y ago
        The problem is, there might be new comments even if you visited the thread. But there's a remedy for it and it's simple: the link includes the number of comments in that discussion, so that your browser can change the color if the number of comments has changed since your last visit. Edit: e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=268389&c=21 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=268389&c=21
        • ichverstehe 18y ago
          That is so very simple and genious. PG, better implement this pronto, shouldn't take more than five lispy, lispy seconds.
        • pg 18y ago
          Very clever. I may do that. But it would take more than 5 seconds, because I have to think about the best way to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.
          • gojomo 18y ago
            Why not just use the same slight-fading that's used for submission titles? (Also: simply changing the link URL would mean users could make a change in their local stylesheets, even if there's no styling change at News.YC.)
        • mhartl 18y ago
          This is neat. I've been using this technique ever since stumbling across it in "Building Communities with Software" by Joel Spolsky (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BuildingCommunitieswithSo.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BuildingCommunitieswi...). Money quote: Q. Why don't you have some kind of system so I can see what posts I've already read? A. We have the best system that can be implemented in a distributed, scalable fashion: we let everyone's browser keep track of it. Web browsers will change the color of the links you've already visited from blue to purple. So all we have to do is subtly change the URL for each topic to include the number of replies available; that way when there are additional replies the post will appear in the "unread" color again. Anything more elaborate than this would be harder to build and would needlessly complicate the UI.
    • slater 18y ago
      Let me introduce you to bookmarklets, specifically the "zap" bookmarklets: https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html
    • Xichekolas 18y ago
      I wonder what I am doing wrong, as my visited links don't gray out like that. Of course, now that I think about it, my Google results don't change color after visiting them either, so maybe it's something with my browser (FF3).
  • pmsaue0 18y ago
    It's always seemed odd to me that the link to the comments for any article is small text and light gray, especially since the discussions are usually the real reason I visit the site. Visually, the comments link should be on par with the article link. IMO