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For a site that lists its #1 principle as minimalism, it sure has a lot going on at all times. Multiple menus all over the screen, many different kinds of link

For a site that lists its #1 principle as minimalism, it sure has a lot going on at all times. Multiple menus all over the screen, many different kinds of links with distinct underline and icon suffix, popups within popups that reinvent OS window functionality, historiated initials, graphical horizontal divider with hidden links, a recommended articles carousel, and a very (visually) busy comments section. Minimal it ain't. If you want to see a professional minimal design, check out mine: https://hypertele.fi/ec997be8c5933e87 https://hypertele.fi/ec997be8c5933e87

gwern 5y ago
> historiated initials Note: these are not 'historiated' because they contain no history, identifiable figures, or scenes. They are just initials/dropcaps.
fourteenminutes 5y ago
https://ayazhafiz.com/cc https://ayazhafiz.com/cc My personal blog! Let me know if you like any of the stuff on it. And what I'm wrong about :)
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  I like it a lot! Very clean. Two observations: There's a rather large blank space at the top, occupying significant vertical space. Since vertical space is most precious on all screen orientations, I'd consider cutting it. The art on the 'visual' page looks very interesting, but clicking on them does nothing. At least make them links to the images themselves. The two with school buses are my favorites. I'd move them to the top to make the best first impression (though this is of course subjective! Place your best works first).
- SebastianKra 5y ago
  I like this design a lot. I like the margin notes in articles. And the design of /about is just so fun to look at. A few complaints: - on phones, the line spacing in the beige boxes on /about is too high - I think the headers on /cc and /visual need tome tweaking --- the spacing between the quote to the actual headline is too big --- on CC, it took me a while to even figure out what the header was because it was nearly indistinguishable from the years - the feedback tab takes you away from the website, despite looking identical to the other tabs.
gnicholas 5y ago
Other commenters have mentioned BeeLine Reader as a way to achieve the same visual tracking benefit that you aim to achieve with right-alignment. I'm the founder of BeeLine Reader and wanted to mention that we have a JS widget and I'd be happy to provide it to any HNer for free. Over the years, several HNers have put our tech on their websites (examples here [1]), and we've even worked with a YC company (Insight Browser [2]). Feel free to contact me (info in profile) if you're interested in trying out BeeLine Reader on your website. 1: https://thegradient.pub/has-ai-found-a-new-foundation/ https://thegradient.pub/has-ai-found-a-new-foundation/ https://wildcardpeople.com/what-is-a-wildcard-person https://wildcardpeople.com/what-is-a-wildcard-person https://jaack.me/cleanmymac-x/ https://jaack.me/cleanmymac-x/ 2: https://insightbrowser.com/collections/reading https://insightbrowser.com/collections/reading
evilc00kie 5y ago
Is plain-text already minimalism? https://evilcookie.de/ https://evilcookie.de/
Karthikeshwar 5y ago
Seriously, GitHub is the personal site for me https://github.com/karthikeshwar1 https://github.com/karthikeshwar1 It's minimal, easy to manage and update. I did try making my own site though: https://karthikeshwar1.github.io https://karthikeshwar1.github.io https://karthikeshwar1.github.io/lite https://karthikeshwar1.github.io/lite
hjkl0 5y ago
Your site is not "minimalist". There is no such thing. There's no standard for "minimalist" websites, no way to define what is or isn't minimalist. There's no need for one either. Your visitors don't require "minimalism" per-se. There's no threshold that you can cross to achieve or reach it. Minimalism is an ideology. It's a heuristic you can use to guide your decision making. If you find yourself comparing how minimalist you are or competing with others on minimalism, I feel like a better description for that is "maximalism".
gouggoug 5y ago
Although I’d agree with the fact that gwern does have a more going on, I definitely don’t think your site is any more minimalistic, I’d ever argue it is far far from it. My first reaction was « THAT’s minimalistic ?? »
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Can you elaborate on what you find superfluous?
  - icelancer 5y ago
    Colors. Lots of them.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      Black, white, magenta, and orange. That's a lot to you? It's very few to me.
      - enriquto 5y ago
        you only need two colors: background and foreground
        hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        That would be the absolute extreme of minimalism, yes. But it's a never-ending rabbit hole. I don't really need a website, either. So the absolute extreme minimalist website is one that doesn't exist. To me, colors are important. I'm a visual artist. The minimal amount of colors to me is an additional two to your two. It's not arbitrary, I didn't just go crazy with colors, I settled on exactly four because I couldn't reduce it to three.
        iamacyborg 5y ago
        > So the absolute extreme minimalist website is one that doesn't exist. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what minimalistic design means. If you've identified that you need a website, minimalism would be paring that down to the core essentials and ensuring it has everything it needs, but nothing more, to suit its purpose.
grey_earthling 5y ago
https://qntm.org https://qntm.org
magnio 5y ago
Of all the developer blogs I have came across, nothing beats this page for me: https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia/ https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia/ It has a perfect blend of minimalism, functionality, aesthetic, typography, accessibility, and mobile-friendly design. I strive to design my blog around the same principles.
- mazork 5y ago
  I mean, this has to be a joke right ? There is seemingly no way for me to go to the homepage from that link. This is less usable than anything else posted in these comments.
- marc_io 5y ago
  Navigation of some sort is absolutely a necessary function for any type of UI that references multiple locations in the same domain. There are none there.
martin_a 5y ago
> If you want to see a professional minimal design, check out mine: text-align:right? WTF? This really hurts when reading. So, while it might be minimalistic, it's not good design.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  It's explained on the linked page, under 'typography': > When your eyes read to the end of a line of text, they have to jump to the beginning of the next one. Left-justified text causes all lines to start at the same vertical, making your eyes sometimes miss the jump and begin reading a wrong line. This is why you're sometimes reading the same line twice by accident. By right-justifying instead, the left edge of the text is made variying, and your eyes have an easier time picking the correct next line. You actually experience physical pain?
  - notafraudster 5y ago
    Hey dude, I just want to give you some feedback as an outside observer. You advanced your own website as somewhere between a solid execution and an ideal for minimalistic design. Virtually every reply you've gotten has been some variation of "Wow, I don't much like this design". You reply to each of the replies insisting you're right and demanding people explain to you how you're not. People are taking time out of their day to give you (admittedly critical) feedback. It probably doesn't work that well to demand more of their time. When you send signals that you're not internalizing the feedback you're getting, people are going to be loath to offer more. It's OK if you don't want to incorporate feedback because you're happy with your work, but the context under which you linked it is such that it's perfectly natural people are going to give it to you unvarnished.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      Anyone who submits critical feedback must be prepared to receive critical feedback in return. I'm not sure what you're saying. This is a discussion forum. Discussion unavoidably demands participants to take some time to participate.
julvo 5y ago
Comparing Gwern's to your website is really interesting. I'd argue, Gwern's website is a good example of minimalist design, whereas the website you posted is the opposite. To me, minimalist design is as little design as possible (Dieter Rams). All design elements need to serve and enhance usability/functionality of the product. That doesn't mean that the total functionality of something needs to be minimal. E.g. you can still have tags, recommended articles and a comment section. In the website you posted, I see design elements that don't serve the usability of the website, but are there just for design sake. E.g. the background image, the colour of the toolbar or the right alignment of the text
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  > I see design elements that don't serve the usability of the website Every single thing you listed has a purpose. > the background image is a blurry gradient of colors magenta and orange, angled off-axis. In other words, the complete opposite of the page contents: Sharp black and white precisely-aligned text. The purpose of a background is to contrast the foreground. Mission accomplished. > the colour of the toolbar is one of the only persistently consistent visual elements across the entire website, which features many very different color schemes in its content. Take this page [0] for instance; as the menu elements you refer to lie on a higher level of interface hierarchy, this color of the toolbar sets the topmost brand tone of the entire website. [0] https://hypertele.fi/d9a64d59472ad05b https://hypertele.fi/d9a64d59472ad05b > the right alignment of the text Quoting the very page under discussion: When your eyes read to the end of a line of text, they have to jump to the beginning of the next one. Left-justified text causes all lines to start at the same vertical, making your eyes sometimes miss the jump and begin reading a wrong line. This is why you're sometimes reading the same line twice by accident. By right-justifying instead, the left edge of the text is made variying, and your eyes have an easier time picking the correct next line.
  - Sinidir 5y ago
    Huh. I never considered text alignment like that. Mind => Blown.
  - 5y ago
ManuelKiessling 5y ago
Sorry, that's not minimalism. gwern.net isn't either; I'd call that "brutalism" instead. THIS is minimalism: https://manuel.kiessling.net https://manuel.kiessling.net Precisely in the sense of "NOT a lot going on at all times". Just the content, presented pleasently. And importantly, it's not only minimalism in look-and-feel, but also technically: even a long post with an embedded image like https://manuel.kiessling.net/2021/05/02/tutorial-react-single-page-applications-spa-with-a-serverless-aws-api-gateway-and-lambda-and-dynamodb-backend-and-terraform-infrastructure-as-code/ https://manuel.kiessling.net/2021/05/02/tutorial-react-singl... weighs in at under 200 KiB. Loads in under 3 seconds even on "slow 3G" in Chrome. 362 milliseconds via my office's wifi. Also, no JavaScript. Nothing moves or jumps. Perfectly usable and consumable in a CLI browser like Lynx. All of that without looking brutalist.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  The site you link is nearly identical to mine, only less visually-oriented (which I feel is excusable as my site focuses on visual arts, not programming). > Just the content, presented pleasently. Please explain which part of my site isn't just the content, presented pleasantly? > minimalism in look-and-feel, but also technically [...] weighs in at under 200 KiB The exact page I linked to [0] weighs 160 KiB, less than your example. I'm confused about you bringing that up. I win? [0] https://hypertele.fi/ec997be8c5933e87 https://hypertele.fi/ec997be8c5933e87
  - retSava 5y ago
    I can add to antiframe's feedback, by saying that I agree with them. The text is rather hard to read to me (without repeating antiframe's points). Also, on the CV page, the text is going back and forth - first on the left side, then right, then middle, and there's pictures here and there that adds to the visual cognitive noise. The bar on the right also has two icons that doesn't seem to do anything (save, next). Finally, as a non-native english speaker to another, I respectfully add that the tone of your comments come across as a bit confrontative, which together with seemingly strongly held opinions and seemingly not very open to feedback, makes me hesitant to engage in this discussion. Perhaps you are not aware of this, so I just wanted to in the most best-meaning manner I can point it out to you.
bradley_taunt 5y ago
Would argue the same as others that this still falls more into “brutalist” rather than minimalism. My website[0] is far from ideal, but certainly falls in line better with the term “minimalism” (page speed, assets loaded, initial paint etc) 0: https://tdarb.org/ https://tdarb.org/
- bdlowery 5y ago
  Every website listed under your projects are examples of minimalism. The other guy should visit those projects and take some hardcore notes, but he's too busy being an asshole to everyone criticizing his terrible website.
- leephillips 5y ago
  I like it. I subscribed to your RSS feed.
iamacyborg 5y ago
> professional minimal design I can hear a million professional designers spinning in their graves at your claim.
- unmole 5y ago
  Looking at the regressive nonsense that professional designers seem to push, I have no trouble believing that is in fact professional design.
  - iamacyborg 5y ago
    Professional designers have the same problem professional developers do, or really, any profession. Too many people trying to reinvent the wheel without learning the fundamentals.
extra88 5y ago
>an HTML-only page that renders content semantically It would have been more semantic to use <em> for emphasized text instead of <I>. Placeholders on form fields are not labels. The comment submit button has tabindex="-1", preventing keyboard users from submitting a comment.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  > The comment submit button has tabindex="-1", preventing keyboard users from submitting a comment. You can just hit Enter after typing your name. No need to select the button.
  - extra88 5y ago
    "Your name" isn't a required field and pressing Enter doesn't do that when the textarea is focused. Additionally, not everyone knows that's the default behavior for pressing Enter in a text input and it's common for forms to be implemented in such a way that it doesn't work.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      > "Your name" isn't a required field Oh snap you're right. Anonymous commenting is a requirement. An oversight! Will fix, much thanks.
ramblerman 5y ago
This is tongue in cheek right? I mean just the colors to begin with, and then the hardly readable buttons on the right. Right aligned text, and the background that screams for your attention more than the actual content.... I mean maybe its rendering strangely on my work computer (forced to use edge), but it's pretty bad.
- hjkl0 5y ago
  I also thought this was ironic. I guess this person would also describe their involvement in this thread (aggressively dismissing every single comment) as a perfect example of minimalism?
pdonis 5y ago
Your site is more "minimal" in that it has fewer text elements on the screen. But your site is much harder for me to read than gwern's. First, I hate dark background, white text; white background, dark text is much easier for me to read. (Note that gwern's site gives both options.) Second, your background image is a huge distraction for me, as is the weirdness of the non-image background at the top and on the right. Third, your paragraphs are right justified instead of left justified, which I find distracting. Fourth, your font is too small for me to read easily. The upshot of all that is that I read the entire content of gwern's page. I didn't read more than a few headings of yours.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  > The upshot of all that is that I read the entire content of gwern's page. I didn't read more than a few headings of yours. Unintuitively, this is a success for me! The headings clearly stuck out, you were able to quickly scan them and determine you didn't care to read the details. That's how I'd expect a minimal design page to work.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > The headings clearly stuck out, you were able to quickly scan them and determine you didn't care to read the details. That's not what happened. What happened was that after trying to scan a few headings of your page, I was so put off by the site design that I didn't even bother trying to figure out from the content of the headings whether I wanted to read the details. So your site design prevented me from doing what you describe.
zajio1am 5y ago
For me, scrolling on your website is unusually slow and with unusably high latency. Not sure why.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  What browser and device are you using?
  - zajio1am 5y ago
    Firefox ESR on Linux PC.
mpalmer 5y ago
Gwern makes it pretty clear that the objective is a minimalist aesthetic, not a minimalist design through-and-through. Not to mention that the same paragraph specifies a design requirement of the site: "What does it take to present complex, highly-referenced, link-intensive, long-form text online as effectively as possible, while conserving the reader’s time & attention?" Even the minimalist answer to that question would probably feature the things you're objecting to.
selfportrait 5y ago
I don’t think your link is an example of minimal let alone professional design…
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Would love to hear any elaboration on what makes you think that. Otherwise your opinion will only amount to "I don't like it", which is just about the least actionable criticism anyone could ever hope for.

gwern 5y ago

> historiated initials Note: these are not 'historiated' because they contain no history, identifiable figures, or scenes. They are just initials/dropcaps.

fourteenminutes 5y ago

https://ayazhafiz.com/cc https://ayazhafiz.com/cc My personal blog! Let me know if you like any of the stuff on it. And what I'm wrong about :)

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
I like it a lot! Very clean. Two observations: There's a rather large blank space at the top, occupying significant vertical space. Since vertical space is most precious on all screen orientations, I'd consider cutting it. The art on the 'visual' page looks very interesting, but clicking on them does nothing. At least make them links to the images themselves. The two with school buses are my favorites. I'd move them to the top to make the best first impression (though this is of course subjective! Place your best works first).
SebastianKra 5y ago
I like this design a lot. I like the margin notes in articles. And the design of /about is just so fun to look at. A few complaints: - on phones, the line spacing in the beige boxes on /about is too high - I think the headers on /cc and /visual need tome tweaking --- the spacing between the quote to the actual headline is too big --- on CC, it took me a while to even figure out what the header was because it was nearly indistinguishable from the years - the feedback tab takes you away from the website, despite looking identical to the other tabs.

gnicholas 5y ago

Other commenters have mentioned BeeLine Reader as a way to achieve the same visual tracking benefit that you aim to achieve with right-alignment. I'm the founder of BeeLine Reader and wanted to mention that we have a JS widget and I'd be happy to provide it to any HNer for free. Over the years, several HNers have put our tech on their websites (examples here [1]), and we've even worked with a YC company (Insight Browser [2]). Feel free to contact me (info in profile) if you're interested in trying out BeeLine Reader on your website. 1: https://thegradient.pub/has-ai-found-a-new-foundation/ https://thegradient.pub/has-ai-found-a-new-foundation/ https://wildcardpeople.com/what-is-a-wildcard-person https://wildcardpeople.com/what-is-a-wildcard-person https://jaack.me/cleanmymac-x/ https://jaack.me/cleanmymac-x/ 2: https://insightbrowser.com/collections/reading https://insightbrowser.com/collections/reading

evilc00kie 5y ago

Is plain-text already minimalism? https://evilcookie.de/ https://evilcookie.de/

Karthikeshwar 5y ago

Seriously, GitHub is the personal site for me https://github.com/karthikeshwar1 https://github.com/karthikeshwar1 It's minimal, easy to manage and update. I did try making my own site though: https://karthikeshwar1.github.io https://karthikeshwar1.github.io https://karthikeshwar1.github.io/lite https://karthikeshwar1.github.io/lite

hjkl0 5y ago

Your site is not "minimalist". There is no such thing. There's no standard for "minimalist" websites, no way to define what is or isn't minimalist. There's no need for one either. Your visitors don't require "minimalism" per-se. There's no threshold that you can cross to achieve or reach it. Minimalism is an ideology. It's a heuristic you can use to guide your decision making. If you find yourself comparing how minimalist you are or competing with others on minimalism, I feel like a better description for that is "maximalism".

gouggoug 5y ago

Although I’d agree with the fact that gwern does have a more going on, I definitely don’t think your site is any more minimalistic, I’d ever argue it is far far from it. My first reaction was « THAT’s minimalistic ?? »

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Can you elaborate on what you find superfluous?
- icelancer 5y ago
  Colors. Lots of them.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    Black, white, magenta, and orange. That's a lot to you? It's very few to me.
    - enriquto 5y ago
      you only need two colors: background and foreground
      - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        That would be the absolute extreme of minimalism, yes. But it's a never-ending rabbit hole. I don't really need a website, either. So the absolute extreme minimalist website is one that doesn't exist. To me, colors are important. I'm a visual artist. The minimal amount of colors to me is an additional two to your two. It's not arbitrary, I didn't just go crazy with colors, I settled on exactly four because I couldn't reduce it to three.
        iamacyborg 5y ago
        > So the absolute extreme minimalist website is one that doesn't exist. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what minimalistic design means. If you've identified that you need a website, minimalism would be paring that down to the core essentials and ensuring it has everything it needs, but nothing more, to suit its purpose.

grey_earthling 5y ago

https://qntm.org https://qntm.org

magnio 5y ago

Of all the developer blogs I have came across, nothing beats this page for me: https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia/ https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia/ It has a perfect blend of minimalism, functionality, aesthetic, typography, accessibility, and mobile-friendly design. I strive to design my blog around the same principles.

mazork 5y ago
I mean, this has to be a joke right ? There is seemingly no way for me to go to the homepage from that link. This is less usable than anything else posted in these comments.
marc_io 5y ago
Navigation of some sort is absolutely a necessary function for any type of UI that references multiple locations in the same domain. There are none there.

martin_a 5y ago

> If you want to see a professional minimal design, check out mine: text-align:right? WTF? This really hurts when reading. So, while it might be minimalistic, it's not good design.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
It's explained on the linked page, under 'typography': > When your eyes read to the end of a line of text, they have to jump to the beginning of the next one. Left-justified text causes all lines to start at the same vertical, making your eyes sometimes miss the jump and begin reading a wrong line. This is why you're sometimes reading the same line twice by accident. By right-justifying instead, the left edge of the text is made variying, and your eyes have an easier time picking the correct next line. You actually experience physical pain?
- notafraudster 5y ago
  Hey dude, I just want to give you some feedback as an outside observer. You advanced your own website as somewhere between a solid execution and an ideal for minimalistic design. Virtually every reply you've gotten has been some variation of "Wow, I don't much like this design". You reply to each of the replies insisting you're right and demanding people explain to you how you're not. People are taking time out of their day to give you (admittedly critical) feedback. It probably doesn't work that well to demand more of their time. When you send signals that you're not internalizing the feedback you're getting, people are going to be loath to offer more. It's OK if you don't want to incorporate feedback because you're happy with your work, but the context under which you linked it is such that it's perfectly natural people are going to give it to you unvarnished.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    Anyone who submits critical feedback must be prepared to receive critical feedback in return. I'm not sure what you're saying. This is a discussion forum. Discussion unavoidably demands participants to take some time to participate.

julvo 5y ago

Comparing Gwern's to your website is really interesting. I'd argue, Gwern's website is a good example of minimalist design, whereas the website you posted is the opposite. To me, minimalist design is as little design as possible (Dieter Rams). All design elements need to serve and enhance usability/functionality of the product. That doesn't mean that the total functionality of something needs to be minimal. E.g. you can still have tags, recommended articles and a comment section. In the website you posted, I see design elements that don't serve the usability of the website, but are there just for design sake. E.g. the background image, the colour of the toolbar or the right alignment of the text

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> I see design elements that don't serve the usability of the website Every single thing you listed has a purpose. > the background image is a blurry gradient of colors magenta and orange, angled off-axis. In other words, the complete opposite of the page contents: Sharp black and white precisely-aligned text. The purpose of a background is to contrast the foreground. Mission accomplished. > the colour of the toolbar is one of the only persistently consistent visual elements across the entire website, which features many very different color schemes in its content. Take this page [0] for instance; as the menu elements you refer to lie on a higher level of interface hierarchy, this color of the toolbar sets the topmost brand tone of the entire website. [0] https://hypertele.fi/d9a64d59472ad05b https://hypertele.fi/d9a64d59472ad05b > the right alignment of the text Quoting the very page under discussion: When your eyes read to the end of a line of text, they have to jump to the beginning of the next one. Left-justified text causes all lines to start at the same vertical, making your eyes sometimes miss the jump and begin reading a wrong line. This is why you're sometimes reading the same line twice by accident. By right-justifying instead, the left edge of the text is made variying, and your eyes have an easier time picking the correct next line.
- Sinidir 5y ago
  Huh. I never considered text alignment like that. Mind => Blown.
- 5y ago

ManuelKiessling 5y ago

Sorry, that's not minimalism. gwern.net isn't either; I'd call that "brutalism" instead. THIS is minimalism: https://manuel.kiessling.net https://manuel.kiessling.net Precisely in the sense of "NOT a lot going on at all times". Just the content, presented pleasently. And importantly, it's not only minimalism in look-and-feel, but also technically: even a long post with an embedded image like https://manuel.kiessling.net/2021/05/02/tutorial-react-single-page-applications-spa-with-a-serverless-aws-api-gateway-and-lambda-and-dynamodb-backend-and-terraform-infrastructure-as-code/ https://manuel.kiessling.net/2021/05/02/tutorial-react-singl... weighs in at under 200 KiB. Loads in under 3 seconds even on "slow 3G" in Chrome. 362 milliseconds via my office's wifi. Also, no JavaScript. Nothing moves or jumps. Perfectly usable and consumable in a CLI browser like Lynx. All of that without looking brutalist.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
The site you link is nearly identical to mine, only less visually-oriented (which I feel is excusable as my site focuses on visual arts, not programming). > Just the content, presented pleasently. Please explain which part of my site isn't just the content, presented pleasantly? > minimalism in look-and-feel, but also technically [...] weighs in at under 200 KiB The exact page I linked to [0] weighs 160 KiB, less than your example. I'm confused about you bringing that up. I win? [0] https://hypertele.fi/ec997be8c5933e87 https://hypertele.fi/ec997be8c5933e87
- retSava 5y ago
  I can add to antiframe's feedback, by saying that I agree with them. The text is rather hard to read to me (without repeating antiframe's points). Also, on the CV page, the text is going back and forth - first on the left side, then right, then middle, and there's pictures here and there that adds to the visual cognitive noise. The bar on the right also has two icons that doesn't seem to do anything (save, next). Finally, as a non-native english speaker to another, I respectfully add that the tone of your comments come across as a bit confrontative, which together with seemingly strongly held opinions and seemingly not very open to feedback, makes me hesitant to engage in this discussion. Perhaps you are not aware of this, so I just wanted to in the most best-meaning manner I can point it out to you.

bradley_taunt 5y ago

Would argue the same as others that this still falls more into “brutalist” rather than minimalism. My website[0] is far from ideal, but certainly falls in line better with the term “minimalism” (page speed, assets loaded, initial paint etc) 0: https://tdarb.org/ https://tdarb.org/

bdlowery 5y ago
Every website listed under your projects are examples of minimalism. The other guy should visit those projects and take some hardcore notes, but he's too busy being an asshole to everyone criticizing his terrible website.
leephillips 5y ago
I like it. I subscribed to your RSS feed.

iamacyborg 5y ago

> professional minimal design I can hear a million professional designers spinning in their graves at your claim.

unmole 5y ago
Looking at the regressive nonsense that professional designers seem to push, I have no trouble believing that is in fact professional design.
- iamacyborg 5y ago
  Professional designers have the same problem professional developers do, or really, any profession. Too many people trying to reinvent the wheel without learning the fundamentals.

extra88 5y ago

>an HTML-only page that renders content semantically It would have been more semantic to use <em> for emphasized text instead of <I>. Placeholders on form fields are not labels. The comment submit button has tabindex="-1", preventing keyboard users from submitting a comment.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> The comment submit button has tabindex="-1", preventing keyboard users from submitting a comment. You can just hit Enter after typing your name. No need to select the button.
- extra88 5y ago
  "Your name" isn't a required field and pressing Enter doesn't do that when the textarea is focused. Additionally, not everyone knows that's the default behavior for pressing Enter in a text input and it's common for forms to be implemented in such a way that it doesn't work.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    > "Your name" isn't a required field Oh snap you're right. Anonymous commenting is a requirement. An oversight! Will fix, much thanks.

ramblerman 5y ago

This is tongue in cheek right? I mean just the colors to begin with, and then the hardly readable buttons on the right. Right aligned text, and the background that screams for your attention more than the actual content.... I mean maybe its rendering strangely on my work computer (forced to use edge), but it's pretty bad.

hjkl0 5y ago
I also thought this was ironic. I guess this person would also describe their involvement in this thread (aggressively dismissing every single comment) as a perfect example of minimalism?

pdonis 5y ago

Your site is more "minimal" in that it has fewer text elements on the screen. But your site is much harder for me to read than gwern's. First, I hate dark background, white text; white background, dark text is much easier for me to read. (Note that gwern's site gives both options.) Second, your background image is a huge distraction for me, as is the weirdness of the non-image background at the top and on the right. Third, your paragraphs are right justified instead of left justified, which I find distracting. Fourth, your font is too small for me to read easily. The upshot of all that is that I read the entire content of gwern's page. I didn't read more than a few headings of yours.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> The upshot of all that is that I read the entire content of gwern's page. I didn't read more than a few headings of yours. Unintuitively, this is a success for me! The headings clearly stuck out, you were able to quickly scan them and determine you didn't care to read the details. That's how I'd expect a minimal design page to work.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > The headings clearly stuck out, you were able to quickly scan them and determine you didn't care to read the details. That's not what happened. What happened was that after trying to scan a few headings of your page, I was so put off by the site design that I didn't even bother trying to figure out from the content of the headings whether I wanted to read the details. So your site design prevented me from doing what you describe.

zajio1am 5y ago

For me, scrolling on your website is unusually slow and with unusably high latency. Not sure why.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
What browser and device are you using?
- zajio1am 5y ago
  Firefox ESR on Linux PC.

mpalmer 5y ago

Gwern makes it pretty clear that the objective is a minimalist aesthetic, not a minimalist design through-and-through. Not to mention that the same paragraph specifies a design requirement of the site: "What does it take to present complex, highly-referenced, link-intensive, long-form text online as effectively as possible, while conserving the reader’s time & attention?" Even the minimalist answer to that question would probably feature the things you're objecting to.

selfportrait 5y ago

I don’t think your link is an example of minimal let alone professional design…

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Would love to hear any elaboration on what makes you think that. Otherwise your opinion will only amount to "I don't like it", which is just about the least actionable criticism anyone could ever hope for.