

A Better HN: Aligned - nwienert
http://natewienert.com/hackernew

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octotoad
I'm sure it's been said before, but I don't see why there's this obsession
with fixing what isn't broken. Seems like change for the sake of change.

The current layout puts the most important element ahead of all else: the
headline, the link title, or whatever you want to call it. Everything else is
secondary.

I don't particularly care who submitted it, what the amount of comments are,
or the ranking, until AFTER I've read the article/page. If it's good content,
upvote it. Isn't that the point?

I have liked some of the styling/design ideas people have come up with, but
every one, as many have pointed out, just breaks things up in a way that makes
it more difficult to digest what's being presented to me.

~~~
polyfractal
To be fair, HN is a usability disaster. Grey text on all "Ask HN" posts? Grey
text on comment headers? Horrible wall of text on the frontpage? The fact that
the New page shows too few posts and everything scrolls off so fast?

Hell, I literally browsed HN for my first month without realizing that there
was a "Front Page". Yes, I only read the "Ask HN"/new/comments sections
because that's all I thought there was. I'm not the sharpest knife in the
drawer, but HN is no epitome of design intelligence either.

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kyro
This is a critique I had with the other HN redesign: I don't think making a
submission's point score front and center is a good idea. You're making it
important, even more so than the actual story is by placing it on the same
line to the left of the story title, and also by increasing its weight.

~~~
nwienert
I actually agree and I've made updates and updated the code on the article.
I'll update the article with the proper screenshot here in a second.

~~~
sandGorgon
actually i disagree for a different reason - it has less to do with what is
important, but more to do with usability. there are two things you can click
in a story - the story itself or the comments. i actually like putting the
points+comments to the left (302 points...21 comments) and making this part
clickable.

really helpful especially on a mobile phone.

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captn3m0
A lot of other styles for HN are at
<http://userstyles.org/styles/browse/ycombinator> .

I personally am a fan of hckrnews.com though.

My current userstyle for HN is Readability[1]

[1]: <http://userstyles.org/styles/16041/hacker-news-readability>

~~~
polyfractal
I like this version (not a user-style, but a scraped/redisplayed version):

<http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com/>

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iamjonlee
I like yours but black and white text becomes VERY tiring to read after a
while.

I'd like to suggest this one:

<http://www.grooovy.me/HN.jpg>

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stevenj
I support the effort of these HN redesigns, as I think innovation is important
in any field or hobby.

But I just haven't come across one yet that I think is better than the current
site.

One of the things I like most about the design of the site is its consistent
use of one style. For example, the styling of the entire second line of a
submission (below the title) uses the same color, font, font-size, lowercase-
type, and spacing throughout.

It's also nice that all of the relevant information for a submission is
contained in that second line -- # of points, username, submission time, # of
comments.

~~~
nwienert
Check out the updated version

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holyjaw
Hah looks great. I just use hckrnews.com, though.

~~~
arunoda
Hmm, Somewhat looking great. But we can't vote and comment there ne? If it is
having a way to read comments, that would be nice at least. Because most of
time I refer Hacker News because of it is having a great community voice.

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Produce
IMO, this is worse than the current. Displaying the points, author and comment
links as floated on the right (for widescreen), and under the story link on
narrow screens is a better improvement.

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thebigredjay
I skim submission titles and consider everything else subtext. The titles
aren't distinguished enough for me here, I find my eyes jumping around more
than I'd like them to.

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hxa7241
Put the color back (top bar and background) -- that is pretty much the entire
graphical identity of the site (i.e. a distinctive, recognisable visual
character).

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guynamedloren
Not bad. I appreciate the fact that there are no numbered rankings, simply
because I think it's unnecessary information that provides no value. Though I
would probably flip the positions of the points and upvote buttons; there's an
association formed between the title and voting, and you're essentially
breaking or fragmenting that connection by moving the button away from the
title.

~~~
arunoda
Numbered ranking is good but now with this UI, it get distracted for the
reading. I suggest a way to put the rank as just as it is now. The design is
neat to me.

~~~
nwienert
The numbers serve no purpose whatsoever, I've never understood why they are
used.

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nwienert
I do know this breaks the site in many areas. It's just a proof of concept for
the home page.

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arideden
The linked to website's CSS doesn't work with Firefox - under Safari its all
nicely centralized, but with the most recent stable Firefox there's a massive
white sidebar on the left hand side so you have to scroll to the right to see
all of the image.

~~~
aw3c2
In Opera scrolling is in tiny increments and eats a whole CPU.

~~~
danso
Yes, scrolling on an iPad is torturous. What is causing this? An over active
scroll handler?

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vdugar
Design tweaks are beneficial if they actually make using HN easier. I really
have no problems with the current layout, and I don't see how a more aligned
HN helps me or makes it "better". Functional is nice. Or it could just be me.

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nwienert
I've updated it so it doesn't break article pages anymore.

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human_error
It's hard to read the usernames.

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twsted
Sorry, no.

