5 ms·

Ask HN: Why do people love the plain old UI of HN?

4 points by anandnair 3y ago

CalChris 3y ago
Loads fast.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rzzzwilson 3y ago
It does the job, presenting the maximum amount of data in a readable form. I read mostly on a large-format tablet, and some designers (eg, reddit) forget that just because a viewer is on mobile doesn't mean they have a limited view. And it's not just because I'm an old stick-in-the-mud, either. I view slashdot using the old desktop URL but much prefer the mobile view for the comments.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Reddit has one of the most user-hostile UIs of any large website, almost as unpleasant on desktop as on mobile.
  - kjs3 3y ago
    On of my UX friends has said of Reddit "I honestly think their UX team gets up every morning thinking 'gawd, I really hate those users', gets a cup of crappy coffee and proceeds to work the rest of the day with that thought front of mind".
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
revskill 3y ago
Because HN devs is bad as CSS.
- anandnair 3y ago
  apparently, lol
anigbrowl 3y ago
It's clean and minimal, but with just enough GUI stuff to be easy on the eyes. I like text based UIs but if they're not done really well they can look like ass. For large volumes of text monospaced fonts perform poorly.
freakynit 3y ago
It works without any bs. Companies lay way too much focus and resources on UI these days.
- kjs3 3y ago
  I would make the argument that the persistent trend of increasingly unusable UIs is because companies don't focus enough on what makes a good UX and just go with whatever flashy crap is fashionable this sprint.
pthr 3y ago
My personal appreciation for the HN UI is that it's completely free of distraction.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kaliyarachan 3y ago
because it works!
criddell 3y ago
I would guess not many of us love the UI, just that it’s probably makes trade-offs that work for most of us. I would wager that just about everybody has some aspect they would change if they were running the place. For me, I like that it’s fast, is all about threads, is compact enough, reasonably high contrast, and simple. The lack of a reply notification is especially brilliant IMHO. Reply notifications lead to lower quality by encouraging one-on-one arguments that are not interesting to most. If you want that experience, it’s available on Reddit. The change I would make would be to limit the width. I don’t usually like reading wide lines.

4 points by anandnair 3y ago

CalChris 3y ago

Loads fast.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rzzzwilson 3y ago

It does the job, presenting the maximum amount of data in a readable form. I read mostly on a large-format tablet, and some designers (eg, reddit) forget that just because a viewer is on mobile doesn't mean they have a limited view. And it's not just because I'm an old stick-in-the-mud, either. I view slashdot using the old desktop URL but much prefer the mobile view for the comments.

anigbrowl 3y ago
Reddit has one of the most user-hostile UIs of any large website, almost as unpleasant on desktop as on mobile.
- kjs3 3y ago
  On of my UX friends has said of Reddit "I honestly think their UX team gets up every morning thinking 'gawd, I really hate those users', gets a cup of crappy coffee and proceeds to work the rest of the day with that thought front of mind".

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

revskill 3y ago

Because HN devs is bad as CSS.

anandnair 3y ago
apparently, lol

anigbrowl 3y ago

It's clean and minimal, but with just enough GUI stuff to be easy on the eyes. I like text based UIs but if they're not done really well they can look like ass. For large volumes of text monospaced fonts perform poorly.

freakynit 3y ago

It works without any bs. Companies lay way too much focus and resources on UI these days.

kjs3 3y ago
I would make the argument that the persistent trend of increasingly unusable UIs is because companies don't focus enough on what makes a good UX and just go with whatever flashy crap is fashionable this sprint.

pthr 3y ago

My personal appreciation for the HN UI is that it's completely free of distraction.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kaliyarachan 3y ago

because it works!

criddell 3y ago

I would guess not many of us love the UI, just that it’s probably makes trade-offs that work for most of us. I would wager that just about everybody has some aspect they would change if they were running the place. For me, I like that it’s fast, is all about threads, is compact enough, reasonably high contrast, and simple. The lack of a reply notification is especially brilliant IMHO. Reply notifications lead to lower quality by encouraging one-on-one arguments that are not interesting to most. If you want that experience, it’s available on Reddit. The change I would make would be to limit the width. I don’t usually like reading wide lines.