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If the author can't stand Reddit's interface... Which is why it’s shocking that Reddit has hung on to its similarly retro design, something that repeatedly sto

If the author can't stand Reddit's interface... Which is why it’s shocking that Reddit has hung on to its similarly retro design, something that repeatedly stopped me from using it. It was only by overcoming the interface that I grasped Reddit’s great user base and functionality. (Huffman told me he found Web 2.0 trendiness to be “tacky,” which might explain why he didn’t embrace one good aspect of Web 2.0: usable, intuitive interfaces.) ...I wonder what he'd think of Hacker News. I guess some people just need clutter.

potatolicious 17y ago
I guess some people just need clutter. I guess some people just need gradients and column-stacking horizontal UIs. Oh, and REALLY LARGE FONTS.
petercooper 17y ago
(Huffman told me he found Web 2.0 trendiness to be “tacky,” which might explain why he didn’t embrace one good aspect of Web 2.0: usable, intuitive interfaces.) If Reddit isn't "usable" or "intuitive," I guess its ~200,000 users must be the cream of the crop when it comes to intelligence..
dylanz 17y ago
I "think" HN has something going in the fact that they don't allow certain, cluttery, ASCII text comment spam like other social destinations (like Reddit, Digg, etc). I'm going to test my hypothesis below. Please excuse me. I'll never do this again on this site. I promise ;) ………………….._,,-~’’’¯¯¯’’~-,, ………………..,-‘’ ; ; ;_,,---,,_ ; ;’’-,…………………………….._,,,---,,_ ……………….,’ ; ; ;,-‘ , , , , , ‘-, ; ;’-,,,,---~~’’’’’’~--,,,_…..,,-~’’ ; ; ; ;__;’-, ……………….| ; ; ;,’ , , , _,,-~’’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ¯’’~’-,,_ ,,-~’’ , , ‘, ;’, ……………….’, ; ; ‘-, ,-~’’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’’-, , , , , ,’ ; | …………………’, ; ;,’’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’-, , ,-‘ ;,-‘ ………………….,’-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’’-‘ ;,,-‘ ………………..,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;__ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ‘-,’ ………………,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;,-‘’¯: : ’’-, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; _ ; ; ; ; ;’, ……………..,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;| : : : : : :| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ,-‘’¯: ¯’’-, ; ; ;’, …………….,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ‘-,_: : _,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; | : : : : : :| ; ; ; | ……………,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ¯¯ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’-,,_ : :,-‘ ; ; ; ;| …………..,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ,,-~’’ , , , , ,,,-~~-, , , , _ ; ; ;¯¯ ; ; ; ; ;| ..…………,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;,’ , , , , , , ,( : : : : :) , , , ,’’-, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;| ……….,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’, , , , , , , , ,’~---~’’ , , , , , ,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’,
- dylanz 17y ago
  ... and the pedobear has been blocked. I rest my case.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
ssharp 17y ago
I much prefer HN's interface to Reddit's. I find Reddit's larger headlines, combined with inconsistent thumbnails, to be a bit sloppy.
- zck 17y ago
  You can turn off the thumbnails in your preferences. Additionally, try the "compress the link display". Here's what I see when I go to reddit: http://imgur.com/angua http://imgur.com/angua . After one of the redesigns, where they introduced the thumbnails and expanded the whitespace, they introduced these options.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
mynameishere 17y ago
It's crazy that reddit's interface gets criticized so much. You know what it looks like? http://www.reddit.com/search?q=dog&sort=new http://www.reddit.com/search?q=dog&sort=new http://www.google.com/search?q=dog&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=dog&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8... ...minus the incongruous map and with 1/10th the ads.
adw 17y ago
Many people'd disagree with you about what clutter is, I suspect. Take a site like http://informationarchitects.jp/ http://informationarchitects.jp/. They're a firm who specialise in news design: unsurprisingly, their site uses rigid typographic hierarchy underpinned by a grid. It feels really uncluttered to me, but it's clearly taken a lot of work to achieve that. Then take Craigslist, which is the other extreme. There's no graphics at all, but it's an amazingly cluttered layout. Both Reddit and Hacker News are nearer the Craigslist end of things than the iA one. None are the acme of good web typography. That's fair enough - Reddit, HN and Craigslist are all huge successes in their niches. However, the design decisions (or choice not to make any design decisions) do affect the tone of a place.
- pwmanagerdied 17y ago
  Perhaps "clutter" wasn't the right word; maybe "crap" would have been a better choice.
  - adw 17y ago
    Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I think this is rooted in a false dichotomy (edit: in the original author's post more than anywhere else), though. You could tidy up the typography of Reddit and it'd look nicer, be easier to read, and be less visually noisy without adding a single "Web 2.0" gewgaw. But it'd change the feel of the place. Incidentally, The Elements of Typographic Style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Sty...) is an amazing book; I reckon a bunch of people here would love it.

potatolicious 17y ago

I guess some people just need clutter. I guess some people just need gradients and column-stacking horizontal UIs. Oh, and REALLY LARGE FONTS.

petercooper 17y ago

(Huffman told me he found Web 2.0 trendiness to be “tacky,” which might explain why he didn’t embrace one good aspect of Web 2.0: usable, intuitive interfaces.) If Reddit isn't "usable" or "intuitive," I guess its ~200,000 users must be the cream of the crop when it comes to intelligence..

dylanz 17y ago

I "think" HN has something going in the fact that they don't allow certain, cluttery, ASCII text comment spam like other social destinations (like Reddit, Digg, etc). I'm going to test my hypothesis below. Please excuse me. I'll never do this again on this site. I promise ;) ………………….._,,-~’’’¯¯¯’’~-,, ………………..,-‘’ ; ; ;_,,---,,_ ; ;’’-,…………………………….._,,,---,,_ ……………….,’ ; ; ;,-‘ , , , , , ‘-, ; ;’-,,,,---~~’’’’’’~--,,,_…..,,-~’’ ; ; ; ;__;’-, ……………….| ; ; ;,’ , , , _,,-~’’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ¯’’~’-,,_ ,,-~’’ , , ‘, ;’, ……………….’, ; ; ‘-, ,-~’’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’’-, , , , , ,’ ; | …………………’, ; ;,’’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’-, , ,-‘ ;,-‘ ………………….,’-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’’-‘ ;,,-‘ ………………..,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;__ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ‘-,’ ………………,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;,-‘’¯: : ’’-, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; _ ; ; ; ; ;’, ……………..,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;| : : : : : :| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ,-‘’¯: ¯’’-, ; ; ;’, …………….,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ‘-,_: : _,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; | : : : : : :| ; ; ; | ……………,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ¯¯ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’-,,_ : :,-‘ ; ; ; ;| …………..,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ,,-~’’ , , , , ,,,-~~-, , , , _ ; ; ;¯¯ ; ; ; ; ;| ..…………,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;,’ , , , , , , ,( : : : : :) , , , ,’’-, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;| ……….,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’, , , , , , , , ,’~---~’’ , , , , , ,’ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’,

dylanz 17y ago
... and the pedobear has been blocked. I rest my case.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

ssharp 17y ago

I much prefer HN's interface to Reddit's. I find Reddit's larger headlines, combined with inconsistent thumbnails, to be a bit sloppy.

zck 17y ago
You can turn off the thumbnails in your preferences. Additionally, try the "compress the link display". Here's what I see when I go to reddit: http://imgur.com/angua http://imgur.com/angua . After one of the redesigns, where they introduced the thumbnails and expanded the whitespace, they introduced these options.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

mynameishere 17y ago

It's crazy that reddit's interface gets criticized so much. You know what it looks like? http://www.reddit.com/search?q=dog&sort=new http://www.reddit.com/search?q=dog&sort=new http://www.google.com/search?q=dog&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=dog&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8... ...minus the incongruous map and with 1/10th the ads.

adw 17y ago

Many people'd disagree with you about what clutter is, I suspect. Take a site like http://informationarchitects.jp/ http://informationarchitects.jp/. They're a firm who specialise in news design: unsurprisingly, their site uses rigid typographic hierarchy underpinned by a grid. It feels really uncluttered to me, but it's clearly taken a lot of work to achieve that. Then take Craigslist, which is the other extreme. There's no graphics at all, but it's an amazingly cluttered layout. Both Reddit and Hacker News are nearer the Craigslist end of things than the iA one. None are the acme of good web typography. That's fair enough - Reddit, HN and Craigslist are all huge successes in their niches. However, the design decisions (or choice not to make any design decisions) do affect the tone of a place.

pwmanagerdied 17y ago
Perhaps "clutter" wasn't the right word; maybe "crap" would have been a better choice.
- adw 17y ago
  Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I think this is rooted in a false dichotomy (edit: in the original author's post more than anywhere else), though. You could tidy up the typography of Reddit and it'd look nicer, be easier to read, and be less visually noisy without adding a single "Web 2.0" gewgaw. But it'd change the feel of the place. Incidentally, The Elements of Typographic Style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Sty...) is an amazing book; I reckon a bunch of people here would love it.