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I can only assume this was posted to HN as ragebait. I think a bunch of these pages look great. I wish my brain could intuitively match typefaces, colours and i

I can only assume this was posted to HN as ragebait. I think a bunch of these pages look great. I wish my brain could intuitively match typefaces, colours and illustrations in the way some of these pages do, but no, engineer brain go bleep bloop. But let’s be real: they’re way too marketing-y for the HN crowd. Don’t they know we like 10px text and as few margins as possible? Information density, people!

conductr 3y ago
It’s completely marketing, every page I saw was a landing/home page. A lot were just brochure websites for an agency. Maybe I missed it, but would be interesting to see this similar inspiration focus on application UI/UX design. There’s a handful of apps that I just like using / doing work in / interacting with the service. Eg. notion, airtable, figma, and while not a front end guy I’ve spent a lot if time in FE over the years and some of these apps leave me wondering how they managed to get html/css/js to look and behave this way. It’s gone beyond the web2.0 origin which gmail still feels like. Some of these web apps feel like full blown applications and introduce a lot of rather unique/bespoke functionality
- ecommerceguy 3y ago
  It took me at least 5 minutes to figure out culture amp is a survey company.
  - whstl 3y ago
    That's a bit reductionist. It is clearly a company doesn't want to be lumped together with Typeform, Surveymonkey or Google Forms, so it's positioning itself as a "employee engagement, performance and development tools". They want to sell tooling that is specific to HRs and other people that might have the desire for those specific tools. I get the desire for boxing things in 10 or 20 neat categories, but companies (and especially those that have a sales team) are often looking to differentiate themselves. Whether they are able to execute this well remains to be seen, naturally.
CuriouslyC 3y ago
10pt font is just bad because there are too many combinations of device/person where it's nearly illegible. It's fine for fine print and redundant captions but you shouldn't go below 11 for paragraphs in most cases. Also, even if you're an information density nerd you need tactical whitespace that helps you quickly jump to the right text box.
zerkten 3y ago
I think it would be improved by focusing on specific elements or patterns. These look pretty but there are deficient elements in some of the designs. With more guidance (the job of the site, but it's too minimalist right now) you can spot the elements which do stand out. I struggled with what you describe and art/design more generally. I started photography as a tech person and naturally gravitated to being a gear head. Now I still shoot with my ancient Canon EOS 7d and it's much more relaxing. I only got there by doing everything by making hard break from looking at the technical aspects, avoiding certain forums, finding photo walks without gearheads, etc. With time I started to appreciate other elements of design and be able to put things together without the feelings that existed before. I'm not sure if there is a particular psychological description of this. There is definitely an element of my anxiety at play though. The 10px and margins get to me too. I'm probably better at articulating my views now with designers that results in productive outcomes. If designers only have the ear of the CEO though it's a lost cause.
Hendrikto 3y ago
I think most of them look extremely generic and boring. They are beautiful, sure, but very standard at the same time.
qingcharles 3y ago
I used to tell myself the same, but after years of doing it you slowly build up a set of rules and intuition in your head. Practice, practice, practice.

conductr 3y ago

It’s completely marketing, every page I saw was a landing/home page. A lot were just brochure websites for an agency. Maybe I missed it, but would be interesting to see this similar inspiration focus on application UI/UX design. There’s a handful of apps that I just like using / doing work in / interacting with the service. Eg. notion, airtable, figma, and while not a front end guy I’ve spent a lot if time in FE over the years and some of these apps leave me wondering how they managed to get html/css/js to look and behave this way. It’s gone beyond the web2.0 origin which gmail still feels like. Some of these web apps feel like full blown applications and introduce a lot of rather unique/bespoke functionality

ecommerceguy 3y ago
It took me at least 5 minutes to figure out culture amp is a survey company.
- whstl 3y ago
  That's a bit reductionist. It is clearly a company doesn't want to be lumped together with Typeform, Surveymonkey or Google Forms, so it's positioning itself as a "employee engagement, performance and development tools". They want to sell tooling that is specific to HRs and other people that might have the desire for those specific tools. I get the desire for boxing things in 10 or 20 neat categories, but companies (and especially those that have a sales team) are often looking to differentiate themselves. Whether they are able to execute this well remains to be seen, naturally.

CuriouslyC 3y ago

10pt font is just bad because there are too many combinations of device/person where it's nearly illegible. It's fine for fine print and redundant captions but you shouldn't go below 11 for paragraphs in most cases. Also, even if you're an information density nerd you need tactical whitespace that helps you quickly jump to the right text box.

zerkten 3y ago

I think it would be improved by focusing on specific elements or patterns. These look pretty but there are deficient elements in some of the designs. With more guidance (the job of the site, but it's too minimalist right now) you can spot the elements which do stand out. I struggled with what you describe and art/design more generally. I started photography as a tech person and naturally gravitated to being a gear head. Now I still shoot with my ancient Canon EOS 7d and it's much more relaxing. I only got there by doing everything by making hard break from looking at the technical aspects, avoiding certain forums, finding photo walks without gearheads, etc. With time I started to appreciate other elements of design and be able to put things together without the feelings that existed before. I'm not sure if there is a particular psychological description of this. There is definitely an element of my anxiety at play though. The 10px and margins get to me too. I'm probably better at articulating my views now with designers that results in productive outcomes. If designers only have the ear of the CEO though it's a lost cause.

Hendrikto 3y ago

I think most of them look extremely generic and boring. They are beautiful, sure, but very standard at the same time.

qingcharles 3y ago

I used to tell myself the same, but after years of doing it you slowly build up a set of rules and intuition in your head. Practice, practice, practice.