9 ms·

Ask HN: What are some well-designed websites?

45 points by EspressoGPT 3y ago

What are some well-designed websites in term of design, look & feel, and usability? The Apple website might be an example.

afavour 3y ago
I suspect you're not going to find much consensus on HN. Being a more developer-heavy community I suspect many people will tell you that Craigslist is the height of design and anything containing a gradient is a wasteful mess. "well-designed" is a very subjective term.
- strunz 3y ago
  Design is about more than cosmetics. Usability and layout is key and engineers have a great perspective on that.
  - afavour 3y ago
    I'd strongly question whether engineers have a great perspective on usability. Some certainly do but in my experience there's no substitute for a highly qualified designer who can think specifically about a project's usability.
    - ecshafer 3y ago
      The thing about this point of view is that it seems like it would indicate that the top companies do not hire designers. Website usability has really deteriorated in the last 20 years or so. Or maybe they aren't designing for usability? Netflix is an awful website for example, it takes so long to find something to watch you might as well just give up and not watch anything. The changes and addition to gmail and google docs (Drive now!) have all been usability regressions. Facebook used to be really useful for keeping in touch and finding events around you. Nothing Microsoft has ever made has been usable. So where are all of these designers creating great usable experiences, since its not at Billion and Trillion dollar companies apparently. Craigslist is a website so elegantly designed that I know 80 year olds that can use it just fine.
      - afavour 3y ago
        > Or maybe they aren't designing for usability? Netflix is an awful website for example, it takes so long to find something to watch you might as well just give up and not watch anything. Yeah I'd argue Netflix absolutely aren't designing for usability. The most usable UI they could offer starts with a big button saying "continue watching the last show you were watching" but that runs the risk of you stopping watching once you're done with that show. They want to push new stuff at you constantly. > Nothing Microsoft has ever made has been usable I'd argue Windows Phone 7 was one of the purest examples of usable UI I've ever interacted with. Then it all got destroyed. The sad reality is that good, usable design is never the top priority.
        t-3 3y ago
        > I'd argue Windows Phone 7 was one of the purest examples of usable UI I've ever interacted with. Then it all got destroyed. The sad reality is that good, usable design is never the top priority. Very much agreed. WP7 was a nearly perfect platform for communication.
  - tristanb 3y ago
    My entire career has been spent fixing engineers perspective on design.
    - PyWoody 3y ago
      Do you have any good book recommendations on design? I've read About Face and found it helpful but repetitive and not necessarily well written.
      - tristanb 3y ago
        The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is a classic.
        bawis 3y ago
        I love this book, but how can I exactly implement the ideas from it ?
  - EspressoGPT 3y ago
    > Usability and layout is key and engineers have a great perspective on that. No.
  - VoodooJuJu 3y ago
    The vast majority of engineers do not have good ideas about UX or design, sadly. What's worse is the vast majority of engineers somehow think they understand UX and design by mistakenly extrapolating their engineering expertise into domains which their engineering expertise does not apply. They end up in this hubris-fueled Dunning-Kruger feedback loop of creating software with a bad user experience. If you're an engineer who does understand the user and what makes a good experience for them, you have a power few possess and you can make some seriously profitable and useful things.
Y_Y 3y ago
https://www.mcmaster.com/ https://www.mcmaster.com/ is a hardware retailer. Their website is a joy to use.
- dorfsmay 3y ago
  This is really nice. Interesting, they use a sprite for all the images in a collection, like it is used for a character in games.
- yeahdef 3y ago
  i love this
- danielvaughn 3y ago
  This is almost a perfect example of truly good design. Usually when we think of design, we think of trends, aesthetics, etc. But in this site the design just falls away to the background and it makes it feel very easy to use. I love this.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - zthall 3y ago
    Couldn't agree more. Reminds me of https://www.rockauto.com/ https://www.rockauto.com/ – if you're looking for modern aesthetics you'll be disappointed. But it's the easiest store that I know of to actually find very specific parts that you're looking for. It's a joy to use.
    - woleium 3y ago
      not on mobile it isn't.
      - bawis 3y ago
        nor on computer.
- 3y ago
fenfe1 3y ago
I've always found https://gov.uk https://gov.uk generally well put together.
- tennisflyi 3y ago
  That's a pretty good middle ground!
umvi 3y ago
https://ciechanow.ski https://ciechanow.ski
- spiderfarmer 3y ago
  This is one of my favorites and I'm happy to see it mentioned so fast. The subjects are truly well explained and the coding for all the interactive illustrations is exquisite and almost all done by hand. I look forward to his next article.
- yonz 3y ago
  Still can't get over the sound post, best blog hands down.
syndicatedjelly 3y ago
Craigslist worked well 15 years ago and still works well today. - There's no "user" persona - Craigslist doesn't develop their site to be addicting. - There are no ads - The buttons for doing basic actions have not moved - You don't need to reveal any personal information to use the service - It does two things, and only two things well - helps buyer buy shit and helps sellers sell shit
- s_dev 3y ago
  >- There are no ads Seems a bit disingenuous when the content purely is advertisements. I agree that Craigslist is a unique asset and a worthwhile service and ultimately a well designed website.
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    No 3rd party ads. No ads served by Goggle for example. No remarketing ads. None of that shite. The only "ads" on CL are for things on CL.
  - mym1990 3y ago
    Craigslist is about as good of an "ad-free" marketplace as you can get, there are no sponsored posts, external advertisers, bad postings can be flagged for removal, etc. I think we both know what "there are no ads" means...so why be so pedantic about it?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - s_dev 3y ago
      >I think we both know what "there are no ads" means...so why be so pedantic about it? I'm just stating I don't see it as an "ad free" site which I understand to be like most of the other websites mentioned. I don't see me as being pedantic but OP playing fast and loose with definitions.
      - 3y ago
Apreche 3y ago
If you are looking for web sites that look fancy like apple.com https://godly.website/ https://godly.website/ But people here, and myself, are going to tell you that those are not well designed sites. Well designed sites are mostly text, good typography, follow all accessibility guidelines, etc.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gspencley 3y ago
  I'm a minimalist but I don't think that well designed necessitates "mostly text." The main concepts that I look for are: - Speed / performance - does the website load and finish rendering quickly? - Focus - does the website guide my eye & attention to the most important/relevant information first? Or does it instead distract me with superfluous information. - Accessibility - This is a broad topic that doesn't just only mean "friendly for screen-readers." It includes things like: is the website easy to read and navigate? Does it not interfere with native browser functionality (websites that prevent the right-click context menu or do not play nicely with the back button are not accessible IMO). This is all in addition to being accessible for special needs users. - Intent - similar to focus but more specific to message and communication: do I immediately understand the purpose of this website and what value it offers me? A lot of marketing websites, IMO, completely fail on this point for me. There's probably more, but I think the above describes the general categories. As I try to think through other examples they tend to fit nicely as a sub-point/example of one of the above.
_xivi 3y ago
For me Stripe is the peak for a product/company website: https://stripe.com/ https://stripe.com/ I heard some people admire https://linear.app/ https://linear.app/ but I don't see the appeal myself Majority of websites often fall into one of two categories: 1. Traditional off the shelf template 2. Look cool but fail when it comes to usability and robustness (those featured on awwwards)
jstx1 3y ago
The lichess.org UI is snappy af especially in comparison to the chess.com one. No idea how anyone manages to play low time controls on chess.com.
xnx 3y ago
Craigslist, Wikipedia, Hacker News. The best designs are fast and functional.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  Off topic but one of life's most simple joys is starting at a topic on wikipedia and then reading and following links to see where you end up. Really makes one appreciate the interconnectivity of our world.
  - SilasX 3y ago
    Except with Wikipedia's (slight) redesign it was actually a regression, especially on mobile. But with an extension for clicking links from the keyboard, it's (still) a joy to navigate.
v8xi 3y ago
I think https://lichess.org https://lichess.org is wonderful and always bring it up as an example of a great UI
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
agarden 3y ago
lichess.org
lapcat 3y ago
> The Apple website might be an example. Ironically, apple.com doesn't even support dark mode! Also, the hover menus are a usability nightmare: https://underpassapp.com/news/2023-2-9.html https://underpassapp.com/news/2023-2-9.html Not to mention that apple.com has a long history of terrible scrolljacking.
- michaelmior 3y ago
  > Ironically, apple.com doesn't even support dark mode! The wording if this makes it sound like supporting dark mode is table stakes. I don't think this is really the case. Personally, I don't expect a site to support dark mode by default. I was ready to say that I guess that most users don't really know dark mode exists, but apparently over 80% of users prefer dark mode according to "studies" described at the links below. However, the methodology of any of these studies isn't really described, so I'm not at all sure of these results. https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/dark-mode-users/ https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/dark-mode-users/ https://marketsplash.com/dark-mode-usage-statistics/ https://marketsplash.com/dark-mode-usage-statistics/
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > > Ironically, apple.com doesn't even support dark mode! > The wording if this makes it sound like supporting dark mode is table stakes. I don't think this is really the case. Personally, I don't expect a site to support dark mode by default. The irony is that Apple invented dark mode, so I do expect that site to support dark mode by default.
    - michaelmior 3y ago
      > The irony is that Apple invented dark mode Do you have a source for that? Windows had dark mode in 2016, macOS in 2018 and iOS/Android in 2019.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        I'm talking about on the web. Apple proposed the standard: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/3299 https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/3299 Safari 12.1 was the first browser to ship with color-scheme and prefers-color-scheme support: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/meta#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/me...
keiferski 3y ago
I really love the website of Brutus, a popular men's culture/fashion magazine in Japan. It manages to be both busy and minimalist at the same time. Plus it just looks so different from most of what you see on similar sites. https://brutus.jp https://brutus.jp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus_(magazine)
- tleb_ 3y ago
  I agree Wikipedia is well designed
  - dave333 3y ago
    Me too! Brutus has horrible vertical tab labels that force you to turn your head 90 deg to read them.
    - dave333 3y ago
      second thought - I guess in Japan that is the norm
resonance1994 3y ago
I'll throw https://www.gov.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/ into the ring here. Heard it's one of the best designed websites for disabled accessibility.
- deathtrader666 3y ago
  Probably the best investment by the gov that's paying off in spades.
- moralestapia 3y ago
  Cookie disclaimer that takes 80% of the page on mobile and you have to tap twice to dismiss it. Nah.
- flir 3y ago
  Great individual pages, but I'm not convinced the site's great. Not the best possible IA, IMO. Probably a bit of Conway's Law creeping in.
- dave333 3y ago
  It was very easy to find wills for my deceased relatives however in trying to set up an account to see my national insurance record it wants a UK postcode that I do not have since I have lived abroad for many years.
vladstudio 3y ago
Aah, that's always a controversial question, on one hand, some universal rules of usability do exist, but on the other hand, everyone's habits, taste and use cases are very different. The most neutral definition of a "well designed" website, without any further context, could be "created in a way that helps users achieve intended goals efficiently, while keeping max number of users happy about its look". Again, different audiences will have very different answers. Here at HN, sites like https://www.mcmaster.com/ https://www.mcmaster.com/ and https://www.craigslist.org https://www.craigslist.org win – because HN users appreciate old look and how efficient these sites are. https://www.apple.com/ https://www.apple.com/ is an industry standard of a marketing site for consumer tech. It's not universally "well designed". Other examples of well done marketing pages: https://www.sketch.com/ https://www.sketch.com/ ; https://statamic.com/ https://statamic.com/ ; https://linear.app/ https://linear.app/ got its share of hype recently. Other times, a website is well designed because its content is awesome and is easy to consume. See https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/ and https://www.joshwcomeau.com/ https://www.joshwcomeau.com/ Is https://github.com/ https://github.com/ well designed? As an amateur developers, I'd say yes. Is https://htmx.org/ https://htmx.org/ well designed? Hmm, at a glance, there's no design at all. Is no design also design? That's a rabbit hole. P.S. I often hear my website is well-designed :-)
- slmjkdbtl 3y ago
  Tbh I don't think craigslist is well designed. I love craigslist from an artistic perspective, but in terms of design there's a lot of confusing aspects.
- chandureddyvari 3y ago
  slightly tangential, but where do people get awesome landing pages like linear(https://fig.io/ https://fig.io/. has similar landing page) etc. Do they build them in-house or buy templates somewhere? Many of the recently launched YC companies have awesome landing pages. eg. https://automorphic.ai/ https://automorphic.ai/,
  - 3523582908 3y ago
    A lot of them pay external design houses to do it. There are several design houses that I know of that are ex YC founders so the connection is already there.
gmiller123456 3y ago
It depends. A well designed site for Apple isn't a well designed site for Lichess. I would recommend browsing through some of the critques on the DesignCourse channel. On some videos people submit their site for critique, and he often live edits them to make them better. https://m.youtube.com/@DesignCourse https://m.youtube.com/@DesignCourse
PyWoody 3y ago
https://poolsuite.net/ https://poolsuite.net/
higgins 3y ago
https://24HourHomepage.com https://24HourHomepage.com
rsync 3y ago
I, also, was going to say mcmaster but since that’s already been mentioned… I really do think lesswrong is a beautifully done site. Minimal, light design without gimmicks and a very functional comment threading system. I don’t read much content there but it’s always a pleasure when I do.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
shmde 3y ago
https://steamdb.info/ https://steamdb.info/ I love this website so so much.
gsuuon 3y ago
https://www.awwwards.com/ https://www.awwwards.com/ showcases some pretty websites
magnio 3y ago
Let's plot websites onto a plane where "look & feel" is the x-axis and "usability" is the y-axis. I suspect most of the websites suggested here will lie in the top left corner. This is exemplified by websites of tech / SaaS companies, with the universal header, a centered display-sized black-weighted heading in Inter, the various screenshots, testimonials, all responsively arranged and come with dark mode, and (possibly falling out of vogue) squishy-squashy Memphis corporates. These are the playgrounds of Tailwind, Vercel, Linear.app, Shopify, PlanetScale, Supabase, etc. Modern at first sight, but quickly dull the senses. Passable for their supreme usability (the Vercel dashboard works better on mobile than many websites on desktop). On the bottom right corners are the grandiloquent, the pompous, the extravagant. See them on Awwwards. Somehow, I feel a sizeable of Web3 websites fall into this, though I have only superficial exposure to them, with their overuse of transitions and animations. It's hard to find the exemplary websites, the residents of the top right corner. Some suggest the apple.com website, which I feel is certainly worthy of consideration but whose style I don't really grok. I shall leave here some suggestions, whose merits I hope is clear upon the first visit: - https://build.mmm.page https://build.mmm.page - https://excalidraw.com https://excalidraw.com - https://laracon.net https://laracon.net - https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia - https://wise.com https://wise.com - https://cal.com https://cal.com - https://freefaces.gallery https://freefaces.gallery
ykonstant 3y ago
Personally, I love the Stacks Project webpage (https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/); https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/); they way it is laid out, the font, the seamless integration of LaTeX in the test (https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/tag/0A2U https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/tag/0A2U) has made me rethink mathematical text for the web.
balaji1 3y ago
Chipotle and Starbucks apps work great. If you have go-to items you want to order and pickup.
Leftium 3y ago
I've been shopping around for banking services and settled on https://wise.com https://wise.com. Best usability of the banks I've tried. So I decided to use Wise as my primary service to pay bills, receive payments, transfer money, and keep savings. Honorable mentions go to: - https://www.capitalone.com https://www.capitalone.com - https://www.sofi.com https://www.sofi.com
jacknews 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com of course!

45 points by EspressoGPT 3y ago

What are some well-designed websites in term of design, look & feel, and usability? The Apple website might be an example.

afavour 3y ago

I suspect you're not going to find much consensus on HN. Being a more developer-heavy community I suspect many people will tell you that Craigslist is the height of design and anything containing a gradient is a wasteful mess. "well-designed" is a very subjective term.

strunz 3y ago
Design is about more than cosmetics. Usability and layout is key and engineers have a great perspective on that.
- afavour 3y ago
  I'd strongly question whether engineers have a great perspective on usability. Some certainly do but in my experience there's no substitute for a highly qualified designer who can think specifically about a project's usability.
  - ecshafer 3y ago
    The thing about this point of view is that it seems like it would indicate that the top companies do not hire designers. Website usability has really deteriorated in the last 20 years or so. Or maybe they aren't designing for usability? Netflix is an awful website for example, it takes so long to find something to watch you might as well just give up and not watch anything. The changes and addition to gmail and google docs (Drive now!) have all been usability regressions. Facebook used to be really useful for keeping in touch and finding events around you. Nothing Microsoft has ever made has been usable. So where are all of these designers creating great usable experiences, since its not at Billion and Trillion dollar companies apparently. Craigslist is a website so elegantly designed that I know 80 year olds that can use it just fine.
    - afavour 3y ago
      > Or maybe they aren't designing for usability? Netflix is an awful website for example, it takes so long to find something to watch you might as well just give up and not watch anything. Yeah I'd argue Netflix absolutely aren't designing for usability. The most usable UI they could offer starts with a big button saying "continue watching the last show you were watching" but that runs the risk of you stopping watching once you're done with that show. They want to push new stuff at you constantly. > Nothing Microsoft has ever made has been usable I'd argue Windows Phone 7 was one of the purest examples of usable UI I've ever interacted with. Then it all got destroyed. The sad reality is that good, usable design is never the top priority.
      - t-3 3y ago
        > I'd argue Windows Phone 7 was one of the purest examples of usable UI I've ever interacted with. Then it all got destroyed. The sad reality is that good, usable design is never the top priority. Very much agreed. WP7 was a nearly perfect platform for communication.
- tristanb 3y ago
  My entire career has been spent fixing engineers perspective on design.
  - PyWoody 3y ago
    Do you have any good book recommendations on design? I've read About Face and found it helpful but repetitive and not necessarily well written.
    - tristanb 3y ago
      The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is a classic.
      - bawis 3y ago
        I love this book, but how can I exactly implement the ideas from it ?
- EspressoGPT 3y ago
  > Usability and layout is key and engineers have a great perspective on that. No.
- VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  The vast majority of engineers do not have good ideas about UX or design, sadly. What's worse is the vast majority of engineers somehow think they understand UX and design by mistakenly extrapolating their engineering expertise into domains which their engineering expertise does not apply. They end up in this hubris-fueled Dunning-Kruger feedback loop of creating software with a bad user experience. If you're an engineer who does understand the user and what makes a good experience for them, you have a power few possess and you can make some seriously profitable and useful things.

Y_Y 3y ago

https://www.mcmaster.com/ https://www.mcmaster.com/ is a hardware retailer. Their website is a joy to use.

dorfsmay 3y ago
This is really nice. Interesting, they use a sprite for all the images in a collection, like it is used for a character in games.
yeahdef 3y ago
i love this
danielvaughn 3y ago
This is almost a perfect example of truly good design. Usually when we think of design, we think of trends, aesthetics, etc. But in this site the design just falls away to the background and it makes it feel very easy to use. I love this.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- zthall 3y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Reminds me of https://www.rockauto.com/ https://www.rockauto.com/ – if you're looking for modern aesthetics you'll be disappointed. But it's the easiest store that I know of to actually find very specific parts that you're looking for. It's a joy to use.
  - woleium 3y ago
    not on mobile it isn't.
    - bawis 3y ago
      nor on computer.
3y ago

fenfe1 3y ago

I've always found https://gov.uk https://gov.uk generally well put together.

tennisflyi 3y ago
That's a pretty good middle ground!

umvi 3y ago

https://ciechanow.ski https://ciechanow.ski

spiderfarmer 3y ago
This is one of my favorites and I'm happy to see it mentioned so fast. The subjects are truly well explained and the coding for all the interactive illustrations is exquisite and almost all done by hand. I look forward to his next article.
yonz 3y ago
Still can't get over the sound post, best blog hands down.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago

Craigslist worked well 15 years ago and still works well today. - There's no "user" persona - Craigslist doesn't develop their site to be addicting. - There are no ads - The buttons for doing basic actions have not moved - You don't need to reveal any personal information to use the service - It does two things, and only two things well - helps buyer buy shit and helps sellers sell shit

s_dev 3y ago
>- There are no ads Seems a bit disingenuous when the content purely is advertisements. I agree that Craigslist is a unique asset and a worthwhile service and ultimately a well designed website.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  No 3rd party ads. No ads served by Goggle for example. No remarketing ads. None of that shite. The only "ads" on CL are for things on CL.
- mym1990 3y ago
  Craigslist is about as good of an "ad-free" marketplace as you can get, there are no sponsored posts, external advertisers, bad postings can be flagged for removal, etc. I think we both know what "there are no ads" means...so why be so pedantic about it?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - s_dev 3y ago
    >I think we both know what "there are no ads" means...so why be so pedantic about it? I'm just stating I don't see it as an "ad free" site which I understand to be like most of the other websites mentioned. I don't see me as being pedantic but OP playing fast and loose with definitions.
    - 3y ago

Apreche 3y ago

If you are looking for web sites that look fancy like apple.com https://godly.website/ https://godly.website/ But people here, and myself, are going to tell you that those are not well designed sites. Well designed sites are mostly text, good typography, follow all accessibility guidelines, etc.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gspencley 3y ago
I'm a minimalist but I don't think that well designed necessitates "mostly text." The main concepts that I look for are: - Speed / performance - does the website load and finish rendering quickly? - Focus - does the website guide my eye & attention to the most important/relevant information first? Or does it instead distract me with superfluous information. - Accessibility - This is a broad topic that doesn't just only mean "friendly for screen-readers." It includes things like: is the website easy to read and navigate? Does it not interfere with native browser functionality (websites that prevent the right-click context menu or do not play nicely with the back button are not accessible IMO). This is all in addition to being accessible for special needs users. - Intent - similar to focus but more specific to message and communication: do I immediately understand the purpose of this website and what value it offers me? A lot of marketing websites, IMO, completely fail on this point for me. There's probably more, but I think the above describes the general categories. As I try to think through other examples they tend to fit nicely as a sub-point/example of one of the above.

_xivi 3y ago

For me Stripe is the peak for a product/company website: https://stripe.com/ https://stripe.com/ I heard some people admire https://linear.app/ https://linear.app/ but I don't see the appeal myself Majority of websites often fall into one of two categories: 1. Traditional off the shelf template 2. Look cool but fail when it comes to usability and robustness (those featured on awwwards)

jstx1 3y ago

The lichess.org UI is snappy af especially in comparison to the chess.com one. No idea how anyone manages to play low time controls on chess.com.

xnx 3y ago

Craigslist, Wikipedia, Hacker News. The best designs are fast and functional.

wonderwonder 3y ago
Off topic but one of life's most simple joys is starting at a topic on wikipedia and then reading and following links to see where you end up. Really makes one appreciate the interconnectivity of our world.
- SilasX 3y ago
  Except with Wikipedia's (slight) redesign it was actually a regression, especially on mobile. But with an extension for clicking links from the keyboard, it's (still) a joy to navigate.

v8xi 3y ago

I think https://lichess.org https://lichess.org is wonderful and always bring it up as an example of a great UI

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

agarden 3y ago

lichess.org

lapcat 3y ago

> The Apple website might be an example. Ironically, apple.com doesn't even support dark mode! Also, the hover menus are a usability nightmare: https://underpassapp.com/news/2023-2-9.html https://underpassapp.com/news/2023-2-9.html Not to mention that apple.com has a long history of terrible scrolljacking.

michaelmior 3y ago
> Ironically, apple.com doesn't even support dark mode! The wording if this makes it sound like supporting dark mode is table stakes. I don't think this is really the case. Personally, I don't expect a site to support dark mode by default. I was ready to say that I guess that most users don't really know dark mode exists, but apparently over 80% of users prefer dark mode according to "studies" described at the links below. However, the methodology of any of these studies isn't really described, so I'm not at all sure of these results. https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/dark-mode-users/ https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/dark-mode-users/ https://marketsplash.com/dark-mode-usage-statistics/ https://marketsplash.com/dark-mode-usage-statistics/
- lapcat 3y ago
  > > Ironically, apple.com doesn't even support dark mode! > The wording if this makes it sound like supporting dark mode is table stakes. I don't think this is really the case. Personally, I don't expect a site to support dark mode by default. The irony is that Apple invented dark mode, so I do expect that site to support dark mode by default.
  - michaelmior 3y ago
    > The irony is that Apple invented dark mode Do you have a source for that? Windows had dark mode in 2016, macOS in 2018 and iOS/Android in 2019.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      I'm talking about on the web. Apple proposed the standard: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/3299 https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/3299 Safari 12.1 was the first browser to ship with color-scheme and prefers-color-scheme support: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/meta#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/me...

keiferski 3y ago

I really love the website of Brutus, a popular men's culture/fashion magazine in Japan. It manages to be both busy and minimalist at the same time. Plus it just looks so different from most of what you see on similar sites. https://brutus.jp https://brutus.jp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus_(magazine)

tleb_ 3y ago
I agree Wikipedia is well designed
- dave333 3y ago
  Me too! Brutus has horrible vertical tab labels that force you to turn your head 90 deg to read them.
  - dave333 3y ago
    second thought - I guess in Japan that is the norm

resonance1994 3y ago

I'll throw https://www.gov.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/ into the ring here. Heard it's one of the best designed websites for disabled accessibility.

deathtrader666 3y ago
Probably the best investment by the gov that's paying off in spades.
moralestapia 3y ago
Cookie disclaimer that takes 80% of the page on mobile and you have to tap twice to dismiss it. Nah.
flir 3y ago
Great individual pages, but I'm not convinced the site's great. Not the best possible IA, IMO. Probably a bit of Conway's Law creeping in.
dave333 3y ago
It was very easy to find wills for my deceased relatives however in trying to set up an account to see my national insurance record it wants a UK postcode that I do not have since I have lived abroad for many years.

vladstudio 3y ago

Aah, that's always a controversial question, on one hand, some universal rules of usability do exist, but on the other hand, everyone's habits, taste and use cases are very different. The most neutral definition of a "well designed" website, without any further context, could be "created in a way that helps users achieve intended goals efficiently, while keeping max number of users happy about its look". Again, different audiences will have very different answers. Here at HN, sites like https://www.mcmaster.com/ https://www.mcmaster.com/ and https://www.craigslist.org https://www.craigslist.org win – because HN users appreciate old look and how efficient these sites are. https://www.apple.com/ https://www.apple.com/ is an industry standard of a marketing site for consumer tech. It's not universally "well designed". Other examples of well done marketing pages: https://www.sketch.com/ https://www.sketch.com/ ; https://statamic.com/ https://statamic.com/ ; https://linear.app/ https://linear.app/ got its share of hype recently. Other times, a website is well designed because its content is awesome and is easy to consume. See https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/ and https://www.joshwcomeau.com/ https://www.joshwcomeau.com/ Is https://github.com/ https://github.com/ well designed? As an amateur developers, I'd say yes. Is https://htmx.org/ https://htmx.org/ well designed? Hmm, at a glance, there's no design at all. Is no design also design? That's a rabbit hole. P.S. I often hear my website is well-designed :-)

slmjkdbtl 3y ago
Tbh I don't think craigslist is well designed. I love craigslist from an artistic perspective, but in terms of design there's a lot of confusing aspects.
chandureddyvari 3y ago
slightly tangential, but where do people get awesome landing pages like linear(https://fig.io/ https://fig.io/. has similar landing page) etc. Do they build them in-house or buy templates somewhere? Many of the recently launched YC companies have awesome landing pages. eg. https://automorphic.ai/ https://automorphic.ai/,
- 3523582908 3y ago
  A lot of them pay external design houses to do it. There are several design houses that I know of that are ex YC founders so the connection is already there.

gmiller123456 3y ago

It depends. A well designed site for Apple isn't a well designed site for Lichess. I would recommend browsing through some of the critques on the DesignCourse channel. On some videos people submit their site for critique, and he often live edits them to make them better. https://m.youtube.com/@DesignCourse https://m.youtube.com/@DesignCourse

PyWoody 3y ago

https://poolsuite.net/ https://poolsuite.net/

higgins 3y ago

https://24HourHomepage.com https://24HourHomepage.com

rsync 3y ago

I, also, was going to say mcmaster but since that’s already been mentioned… I really do think lesswrong is a beautifully done site. Minimal, light design without gimmicks and a very functional comment threading system. I don’t read much content there but it’s always a pleasure when I do.

deleted 3y ago

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shmde 3y ago

https://steamdb.info/ https://steamdb.info/ I love this website so so much.

gsuuon 3y ago

https://www.awwwards.com/ https://www.awwwards.com/ showcases some pretty websites

magnio 3y ago

Let's plot websites onto a plane where "look & feel" is the x-axis and "usability" is the y-axis. I suspect most of the websites suggested here will lie in the top left corner. This is exemplified by websites of tech / SaaS companies, with the universal header, a centered display-sized black-weighted heading in Inter, the various screenshots, testimonials, all responsively arranged and come with dark mode, and (possibly falling out of vogue) squishy-squashy Memphis corporates. These are the playgrounds of Tailwind, Vercel, Linear.app, Shopify, PlanetScale, Supabase, etc. Modern at first sight, but quickly dull the senses. Passable for their supreme usability (the Vercel dashboard works better on mobile than many websites on desktop). On the bottom right corners are the grandiloquent, the pompous, the extravagant. See them on Awwwards. Somehow, I feel a sizeable of Web3 websites fall into this, though I have only superficial exposure to them, with their overuse of transitions and animations. It's hard to find the exemplary websites, the residents of the top right corner. Some suggest the apple.com website, which I feel is certainly worthy of consideration but whose style I don't really grok. I shall leave here some suggestions, whose merits I hope is clear upon the first visit: - https://build.mmm.page https://build.mmm.page - https://excalidraw.com https://excalidraw.com - https://laracon.net https://laracon.net - https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia - https://wise.com https://wise.com - https://cal.com https://cal.com - https://freefaces.gallery https://freefaces.gallery

ykonstant 3y ago

Personally, I love the Stacks Project webpage (https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/); https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/); they way it is laid out, the font, the seamless integration of LaTeX in the test (https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/tag/0A2U https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/tag/0A2U) has made me rethink mathematical text for the web.

balaji1 3y ago

Chipotle and Starbucks apps work great. If you have go-to items you want to order and pickup.

Leftium 3y ago

I've been shopping around for banking services and settled on https://wise.com https://wise.com. Best usability of the banks I've tried. So I decided to use Wise as my primary service to pay bills, receive payments, transfer money, and keep savings. Honorable mentions go to: - https://www.capitalone.com https://www.capitalone.com - https://www.sofi.com https://www.sofi.com

jacknews 3y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com of course!