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Think about sites like Hacker News or Craigslist. They are arguably not very "tasty" designs, but they are simple and they work. That's an important point to d

by jbail 14y ago

Think about sites like Hacker News or Craigslist. They are arguably not very "tasty" designs, but they are simple and they work. That's an important point to digest. Just because something looks nice doesn't mean it's effective. It may be the opposite. Sure, the website looks "nice", I guess, but is that the goal? Or is the goal of the site to get sign ups, generate referrals, make money, etc? When you're done plugging in Bootstrap, does the design serve your goals? Or does it just look nice? Have you saved time or merely punted the design farther down the road? Again, I'm playing Devil's advocate because I do see the value in Bootstrap. I just rarely hear any contrary opinions on Bootstrap and it's important to understand (or at least discuss) the trade offs in using a canned design.

indiecore 14y ago
I couldn't design a site like Hacker News, not in my wildest dreams. It's the essence of a site with everything supliferous taken away and that takes talent that I just don't have. It's less about "looking nice" and more about "ok can people who aren't me actually use this site? Bootstrap really helps with stuff like that because it does a lot of heavy lifting for you (styled content, scaffolding, themed buttons, etc) and allows you to fiddle with that stuff to get the effect that you want while still making everything line up. Now make no mistake about it people can still design awesome sites with nothing and people can definitely design terrible sites with bootstrap it's just that the bar for terrible is a little harder to reach if someone is holding your hand. Also with regards to the whole "everything looks canned" I think that's largely a part of being on a site where bootstrap is very popular. I know I used a lot of bootstrap sites before I knew what it was and I was none the wiser but now that I used it too I see it everywhere.

by jbail 14y ago

indiecore 14y ago

I couldn't design a site like Hacker News, not in my wildest dreams. It's the essence of a site with everything supliferous taken away and that takes talent that I just don't have. It's less about "looking nice" and more about "ok can people who aren't me actually use this site? Bootstrap really helps with stuff like that because it does a lot of heavy lifting for you (styled content, scaffolding, themed buttons, etc) and allows you to fiddle with that stuff to get the effect that you want while still making everything line up. Now make no mistake about it people can still design awesome sites with nothing and people can definitely design terrible sites with bootstrap it's just that the bar for terrible is a little harder to reach if someone is holding your hand. Also with regards to the whole "everything looks canned" I think that's largely a part of being on a site where bootstrap is very popular. I know I used a lot of bootstrap sites before I knew what it was and I was none the wiser but now that I used it too I see it everywhere.