5 ms·

There was some F1 website posted on here the other day and it was absolutely beautiful, but a bit quirky to use in practice. Ton of people complained, they hat

by esseph 1y ago

There was some F1 website posted on here the other day and it was absolutely beautiful, but a bit quirky to use in practice. Ton of people complained, they hated it! That's why everything is fucking boring, because everybody tries to cater to the average.

bookofjoe 1y ago
I tried really hard to like that F1 website but just couldn't do it: terrible experience.
verdverm 1y ago
From the well aged book "Don't Make Me Think", people read the web differently than books. Almost always they are there to find information or get something accomplished, not for aesthetics or pleasure (though social media has likely skewed this since it's penning) This is why consistent UX beats out cleaver design (churn)
- esseph 1y ago
  Bring back those crazy flash websites from the early 2000s
  - appreciatorBus 1y ago
    Pls no. Like if someone wants to do crazy stuff, that’s fine, do it as an art project, whatever. But IMO the only people who benefit when businesses and institutions are required to turn their websites into works of art, are artists. Everyone else is worse off.
    - esseph 1y ago
      There were some absolutely amazing ones in the style of old demoscene releases
thrance 1y ago
See also, The Tyranny of the Marginal User: https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-marginal-user https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-margi...
cheschire 1y ago
I’m so happy I was not the only person to notice that. A bit quirky is exactly how I would have described it and once I accepted scrolling one direction would move the page wherever the designer wanted, I was fine. I guess we found all the kids at Ender’s battle school that couldn’t imagine the enemy’s gate as “down”.
owlninja 1y ago
I do wonder how HN specific this is? Every site that has a quirky design or attempts something new gets absolutely blasted by surly people. But then someone posts a funny GeoCities style bootstrap theme and everyone goes on about how they miss when sites had a quirky touch?
- Timwi 1y ago
  When I “blast” a website design, it's for practical reasons, not because I dislike the design. Since I mostly read HN on my phone, every website that is slow, laggy or unreadable on mobile just stands out negatively.
- electroly 1y ago
  I really think it's just simply about scrolljacking and not anything deeper. The GeoCities style sites have normal scrolling and the F1 site has hijacked (and very bizarre) scrolling. If your site hijacks the scrollbar then you will get complaints on HN. Keep it in mind and see how many HN complaints you read that are actually just about scrolljacking. I think readers here love quirky websites as long as it doesn't mess with scrolling.
Tempest1981 1y ago
This, I assume: (vertical scrolling moves horizontally, then vertically, later diagonally) https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/43832710/how-f1-evolved-1950-where-headed-2026 https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/43832710/how-f1... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44816977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44816977
- LandR 1y ago
  Love that!

by esseph 1y ago

bookofjoe 1y ago

I tried really hard to like that F1 website but just couldn't do it: terrible experience.

verdverm 1y ago

From the well aged book "Don't Make Me Think", people read the web differently than books. Almost always they are there to find information or get something accomplished, not for aesthetics or pleasure (though social media has likely skewed this since it's penning) This is why consistent UX beats out cleaver design (churn)

esseph 1y ago
Bring back those crazy flash websites from the early 2000s
- appreciatorBus 1y ago
  Pls no. Like if someone wants to do crazy stuff, that’s fine, do it as an art project, whatever. But IMO the only people who benefit when businesses and institutions are required to turn their websites into works of art, are artists. Everyone else is worse off.
  - esseph 1y ago
    There were some absolutely amazing ones in the style of old demoscene releases

thrance 1y ago

See also, The Tyranny of the Marginal User: https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-marginal-user https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-margi...

cheschire 1y ago

I’m so happy I was not the only person to notice that. A bit quirky is exactly how I would have described it and once I accepted scrolling one direction would move the page wherever the designer wanted, I was fine. I guess we found all the kids at Ender’s battle school that couldn’t imagine the enemy’s gate as “down”.

owlninja 1y ago

I do wonder how HN specific this is? Every site that has a quirky design or attempts something new gets absolutely blasted by surly people. But then someone posts a funny GeoCities style bootstrap theme and everyone goes on about how they miss when sites had a quirky touch?

Timwi 1y ago
When I “blast” a website design, it's for practical reasons, not because I dislike the design. Since I mostly read HN on my phone, every website that is slow, laggy or unreadable on mobile just stands out negatively.
electroly 1y ago
I really think it's just simply about scrolljacking and not anything deeper. The GeoCities style sites have normal scrolling and the F1 site has hijacked (and very bizarre) scrolling. If your site hijacks the scrollbar then you will get complaints on HN. Keep it in mind and see how many HN complaints you read that are actually just about scrolljacking. I think readers here love quirky websites as long as it doesn't mess with scrolling.

Tempest1981 1y ago

This, I assume: (vertical scrolling moves horizontally, then vertically, later diagonally) https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/43832710/how-f1-evolved-1950-where-headed-2026 https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/43832710/how-f1... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44816977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44816977

LandR 1y ago
Love that!