5 ms·

The website is very consistent and has a very clear visual hierarchy. It seems your subjective impression colored all your subsequent judgments about the site.

by ugh 15y ago

The website is very consistent and has a very clear visual hierarchy. It seems your subjective impression colored all your subsequent judgments about the site. What you are writing there in the first sentence just makes no sense at all, caps, bolding, lines and diamonds are all used consistently to create a clear visual hierarchy. Don’t hate on it just because you don’t like the look of it.

mnutt 15y ago
Though it could have been said more constructively, I don't the the parent is completely wrong about the grouping of the elements. I find the diamonds a bit distracting because to my eyes it makes the right column a long string of different sized line lengths. If they just removed the diamonds I think it would be much clearer visually that the videos and text were grouped together.
- ugh 15y ago
  That’s a small (even debatable) thing. Nothing that would warrant the language the grandparent used.
barkingcat 15y ago
I'd like to counter that my subjective impression is important when looking at a design. I take one look at the site, and it repulsed me away from taking a look at the site contents further. That's what design does - it can attract you and make you obsess and salivate over it without you knowing why (like the design for the iphone for example), or it can make you look away as soon as you even get a glimpse at it. I can handle different artistic styles - but just do it well. There is a visual hierarchy, but it serves to distract me instead of guiding me along the contents of the page. I may sound really harsh - but that's because I value meaning and content over technical consistency. For example, the diamonds are used in an extremely consistent way - to mark the separation of content - BUT they clash against the white lines which serve a lower purpose - which one grabs your attention more? I don't know, they both look pretty loud. Again, a very technical design - very consistent - but there is no use to having all these elements all over the page. I suggest if they want to use diamonds, then make the white lines thinner. The diamonds mark distinction between pieces of "content" (ie different videos), whereas the white lines mark the distinction between title and descriptive text within a single video. I would postulate that the marker between content is more important than the marker between title/descriptive text, so therefore: 1) Have one diamond separating the videos 2) take the white lines, and make them thinner so they don't compete with the diamond markers. That's what I meant by "visual hierarchy" - every visual element should have a priority - that leads you to think and absorb the content in a priority list. And I agree about the video screencaps - what good is a big picture for a videocap if it's just repeating the title in a graphical way next to the title in the next column over? The coding principles of DRY also applies in design. If the graphical element is considered important, then 1) keep the screenshot / video player that has the title as the videocap - use the <alt> tag to have the title show up in screenreaders for accessibility if people have browsers that can't display images. 2) REMOVE the title from the right hand column 3) just have the descriptive text in the right hand column. Propagate this down the entire list of videos and that immediately cleans up the design a lot. The other explanation I can think of is that this is a "look what I did over the weekend" project. The whole thing is very tongue and cheek so maybe it has some insider designer jokes - but that means we as hackers should not be parading it around as a good design.

by ugh 15y ago

mnutt 15y ago

Though it could have been said more constructively, I don't the the parent is completely wrong about the grouping of the elements. I find the diamonds a bit distracting because to my eyes it makes the right column a long string of different sized line lengths. If they just removed the diamonds I think it would be much clearer visually that the videos and text were grouped together.

ugh 15y ago
That’s a small (even debatable) thing. Nothing that would warrant the language the grandparent used.

barkingcat 15y ago

I'd like to counter that my subjective impression is important when looking at a design. I take one look at the site, and it repulsed me away from taking a look at the site contents further. That's what design does - it can attract you and make you obsess and salivate over it without you knowing why (like the design for the iphone for example), or it can make you look away as soon as you even get a glimpse at it. I can handle different artistic styles - but just do it well. There is a visual hierarchy, but it serves to distract me instead of guiding me along the contents of the page. I may sound really harsh - but that's because I value meaning and content over technical consistency. For example, the diamonds are used in an extremely consistent way - to mark the separation of content - BUT they clash against the white lines which serve a lower purpose - which one grabs your attention more? I don't know, they both look pretty loud. Again, a very technical design - very consistent - but there is no use to having all these elements all over the page. I suggest if they want to use diamonds, then make the white lines thinner. The diamonds mark distinction between pieces of "content" (ie different videos), whereas the white lines mark the distinction between title and descriptive text within a single video. I would postulate that the marker between content is more important than the marker between title/descriptive text, so therefore: 1) Have one diamond separating the videos 2) take the white lines, and make them thinner so they don't compete with the diamond markers. That's what I meant by "visual hierarchy" - every visual element should have a priority - that leads you to think and absorb the content in a priority list. And I agree about the video screencaps - what good is a big picture for a videocap if it's just repeating the title in a graphical way next to the title in the next column over? The coding principles of DRY also applies in design. If the graphical element is considered important, then 1) keep the screenshot / video player that has the title as the videocap - use the <alt> tag to have the title show up in screenreaders for accessibility if people have browsers that can't display images. 2) REMOVE the title from the right hand column 3) just have the descriptive text in the right hand column. Propagate this down the entire list of videos and that immediately cleans up the design a lot. The other explanation I can think of is that this is a "look what I did over the weekend" project. The whole thing is very tongue and cheek so maybe it has some insider designer jokes - but that means we as hackers should not be parading it around as a good design.