
Hacker News Redesign - taiyab
http://www.taiyab.co.uk/2012/04/hacker-news-redesign/
======
SeoxyS
I'm sorry, but this is a perfect example of the difference between design and
eye candy. Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design
school, when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading
psdtuts.com.

The difference is that style is only skin-deep. It's superficial. It's an
added bonus on top of _design_. Design, on the other hand, is the core of the
product: how it functions. It's the soul: what story it tells.

Your redesign, while prettier, does nothing to improve the user experience, or
to tell a story. Sure, it's easier on the eyes, but it's a much worse _design_
, in that it makes the user experience worse. It's now _harder_ to read: less
information is on the screen. (11 story as opposed to 25, on my screen.) The
information hierarchy within stories is less clear. The eye has to jump around
more to get the secondary information (poster / point count / comment count /
time posted). The flag functionality is simply gone…

You did a good job making it look better, and should be commended for that.
But as for the design, try again.

PS: Take this as friendly critique. Take it in, learn what you can, try again.
Rise, repeat. Don't be discouraged, but realize you have a long way to go.
You'll get there!

\--

Note: Check out this redesign, which I think is quite effective, and is
installable as a extra stylesheet on the current HN code:
<http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/Hacker_News-20120420-180413.png>

~~~
notlisted
I want this: <http://i.imgur.com/xKRkY.png>

My longer reply got lost somewhere.

~~~
205guy
So far the best. The 3 most important things are the largest: comments, link
to story, upvote (though I would've moved upvote to the right of story link--
but that's just me, I don't believe in upvoting anymore).

------
uniclaude
I believe this is not a good redesign, and I'll try to explain why:

\- Where should I click to go to the comments page? If I have to click on the
little bubble on the right of each article, it actually makes my user
experience less pleasant than with the current design. (Did OP read "Don't
Make Me Think"?)

\- No flagging button. Did OP voluntarily omit it? If so, why? If not, where
would he put it?

\- The scores of the articles look likes buttons, what should I expect when I
click on them?

\- Knowing the number of comments of an article and its score are both
important to create a certain "I need to see this" factor for readers. Putting
those numbers respectively on the far left and on the far right does not help
this at all.

I really agree with SeoxyS here. This redesign does not improve the current HN
experience, and it actually makes it more complex by displaying the
information in a way that does not look bad but does not actually help
browsing the site.

I would suggest OP to think (or learn) more about UX. That's a very good thing
to do on a Friday night, and even though a lot of this knowledge can come
through working with a different focus (think about your user) and common
sense, there are good books to get you started.[1][2]

[1]:[http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-
Usability/dp/032134...](http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-
Usability/dp/0321344758) \- I recommend this

[2]:[http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-
In...](http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-
Interface/dp/012375030X) \- Not as good, but only 200 pages, and interesting.

~~~
kamweti
I'd also recommend Designed For Use by Lukas Mathis
<http://pragprog.com/book/lmuse/designed-for-use> .It has great chapters on
the UI/Ux process.

------
astral303
Sorry, but I don't like it. I do like the top header and the color scheme in
general. The texture in the header looks snazzy, in a good way.

The space wasted by the listing of stories is very excessive. That's the meat
and potatoes of the site, yet I see 10 stories in the first screenfold vs 24
now. Why dedicate so much space to the wide "XX points" label? Is it even
clickable (why would it be?) Arguably upvoting a story is more important and
is actually actionable, yet the up vote "caret" looks way less clickable. The
comment count balloons are jarring in their size and contrast and their random
placement on the right side is distracting. When I glance at the page, I
notice this jagged curve of gray dots, yet it delivers no useful information
(other than how long the headline is, which is not useful).

So I think it's all about the spacing. When I look at that page, is the
headline list easily perusable end parsable? I don't think it is. It is more
spaced out than the current design, but it is surrounded and squeezed by these
loud new elements. Think about the negative space created by the three new
columns before the headline--I think clutters up the headline list.

Compared to the current design, this is a worse design. While the current HN
design could use improvement (IMO text is too tiny), it does have a striking
simplicity and focus on headlines that I love.

I apologize if I come off sounding harsh, and I certainly don't have design
chops myself to pull off something like that (though I'd like to at some point
in the future...)

~~~
nwienert
This did inspire me to try a more aligned yet compact redesign:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/newest> (HN Aligned)

~~~
X-Istence
Instead of linking to the newest page on HN, how about linking directly to the
content.

In this case: <http://natewienert.com/hackernew>

I understand you won't get nearly as much "karma" for linking to website in a
comment as you would if you hit the frontpage, but now I had to go looking for
your article in the long list of articles on the newest page with no real
gain.

------
bmelton
All fairness, this is perhaps my favorite HN redesign that I've seen. I'm a
fan of the white space, and the far more readable text.

I don't know why we're numbering the posts on HN, so I won't critique it on
the redesign, but I think you could safely drop that as an artifact and then,
perhaps, the 'points' section wouldn't look so large.

The only thing I flat out dislike is the number of comments floating out to
the right. It's a ragged-right design, and it bugs the crap out of me (though
it might just be me).

On the whole, I'd much rather be using that site than this one though, and
that's gotta be the benchmark for success. I don't think it's perfect, but I
definitely agree that it's a big improvement.

------
shib71
Redesigning a popular site is a good way for up-and-coming designers to show
off their skills - but it's important to consider the target audience and
their priorities. Yes, HN users want speed, but mentioning page load times and
moving on shows that you haven't really thought about that. We want to get
into the meat of HN (which is the conversations) as fast as possible.
Everything that gets in the way of that is bad.

1) Spacing - designers love adding extra space, and on first glance it looks
beautiful. But too much space slows down browsing speed.

2) The numbered articles - more eye catching than the actual content. A user
reading that page will have to spend concentration on not looking at the
numbers.

3) The same with the bubbles around the comment counts and upvotes. Those
values are important for HN readers - but not as important as the actual
topic.

 _The design is less important than the content._

------
kijin
It looks good, although I also like the current, simpler design. One thing I
really like about your mock-up is that the link to the comments page has a
much bigger click target. I lost count of the times I wanted to open the
comments page but missed the target by a couple of pixels because it's so darn
small (only 7pt).

If I were you, I'd drop the leftmost number (1, 2, 3 ... 20) which looks
totally useless to me. I'd also move the points number right below the upvote
button so that everyone can immediately tell what it is. No need to repeat
"Points" 20 times in every page.

Also, screenshots like this should be in PNG, not JPG.

------
notlisted
Looks pretty... unusable and, no offense, not well thought out...

\- Items that deserve no attention are bright and draw the eye (e.g. numbers
in front of questions, what's the use, so you can refer to them in a chat?)
Should be muted at best, perhaps even removed.

\- Repetition of the word Points unneeded. Takes up valuable space and adds
nothing (note that I've never used that info either in deciding what to view,
but some may)

\- Upvote button large, I like but does not need an attention-grabbing color
(at least not until I hover over it).

\- Title is still too small in the new design.

\- "Posted by" is redundant and could be removed as well, or replaced by "By"

\- "Time since" indication which I use as my 'click-trigger' for repeat visits
throughout the day I'd like that to be more prominent than the Posted by, i.e.
at the from of the line

\- The comment balloons at the end make no sense. Appreciate the larger
target, visually intrusive due to positioning Sub-optimal in terms of mouse-
movements required. I'd put them at the front as well.

In short: I'd like something resembling this <http://i.imgur.com/xKRkY.png>

------
dreamdu5t
\- Content is king. The density of content on HN is what people enjoy about
it.

\- Focal point should be the submission title. The item's position and number
of upvotes shouldn't attract the most visual attention.

\- Use color sparingly to draw focus. The submission titles should be orange,
not their position in the list.

\- Style should target audience. The style and aesthetic of HN is more
appealing to hackers and programmers than the iOS aesthetic.

\- Accessibility is important. Stories should be tab-key accessible.

\- Redesigns should improve. OP's redesign shouldn't be a coat of new paint,
but a superior model of engineering.

------
jstabbac
I think one of the reasons Hacker News has stayed this simple is that it helps
filter out some of the users that don't look past design.

------
ricefield
The question you need to ask yourself is, "Does my design add value?"

The top comment already sums it up perfectly - Design is not about making
things pretty or looking nice. Design is about function, design is about
value.

I won't deny that the design looks good. I'd say it looks 'prettier' in
certain ways, but if its not more functional or doesn't add more value to my
experience on HN, what good is it to me?

------
iamjonlee
I'm sorry to say this, but what SeoxyS said was exactly how I felt.

Here's what I think should have been done: LINK <http://www.grooovy.me/HN.jpg>

Here are some thoughts on why I made mine this way:

1) Hacker news is read by hundred of thousands of people every month- to adapt
to a completely new design would wreck the user experience the users have come
to expect.

2) Your patterns and icons, while I appreciate the gesture takes focus away
from the headlines. The most important thing should be the headlines on hacker
news. That's how it was designed to be. Everything else should pale in color
compared to it.

3) As SeoxyS mentioned, I designed mine as to not disrupt the functionality
that everyone's used to. What I did was "design" the page to improve
readability. I made the background color behind the text a light grey so it's
not as gloomy as the current site and used a dark grey font rather than the
black on current site to improve faster reading. Black on white is always
tiring on the eyes, which is why I tried to adapt different shades of grey.

4) I don't like HN's top nav bar right now because it takes focus away from
the logo. The logo should be consistent with the one found and recognized on
YC's main site. A logo on the site should be loud and clear. I made the top
nav bar a darker grey so that it would give focus back to the logo.

5) The selected links are now orange instead of white. By having tiny accents
of color, it adds the kind of eye candy that you want but nonetheless tied in
with functionality. UX comes first, then UI. You can make something pretty
after think about how you'll first make it user-friendly.

6) To improve eye candy, I gave the bottom nav the bright color of HN to
really lighten up the page. I felt that otherwise there would be too many grey
areas.

7) I moved the search to the top and yes, this does change what the users are
used to, but in my opinion a good change. I've read many posts where people
(including myself) have had a hard time finding the search button. To move it
to the top nav will adapt to web standards.

Normally, I'd make the search larger and start right aligned at the end of the
top nav bar and instead move the username + logout link above it, but I felt
that it might be too disruptive, so I sacrificed what looks the best for a
better experience (this is important).

I do give you props for trying it out, that's how we all push forward to
improve.

------
biiiju
I think that it looks good, but I think that you could change how you display
the number of points each post has accumulated. The design of the site does
not seem to fit the culture of hacker news. Look at the current website, it
looks like it was hacked together by a programmer not a designer. I think that
a redesign of hacker news would include a bit of the old site's spirit. just
my opinion please excuse my grammar

------
xianshou
It seems to me as though most of the critics here dislike the decreased
information density more than anything else. This is a problem easily solved;
make the text smaller and decrease the space between elements.

On a broader topic, though, many of the commenters appear to view style and
substance as opposing forces. O hackers, can we not have both the
functionality and the form? The presence and organization of information does
not fundamentally conflict with rounded rectangles, smoother fonts, CSS
buttons and all the other jazz that populate our startup pages.

Arguing that the ugliness of the current design improves the quality of the
user base is the online equivalent of wearing coke bottle glasses because it
makes you look nerdier. Let's present our services as both sexy and smart.

------
andrethegiant
> I know Hacker News is all about fast load times and minimal bandwidth usage,
> hence the lack of much graphical work in the current version.

Actually, I believe that the simplified design of HN as it is currently helps
ward off the typical Internet surfer looking for new links to click on. The
last thing HN needs is to attract users who only post pictures of animals.

My single piece of design criticism for HN would be to provide a hi-res upvote
triangle image (heck, why isn't it pure CSS?) for retina display devices.

~~~
icebraining
_My single piece of design criticism for HN would be to provide a hi-res
upvote triangle image (heck, why isn't it pure CSS?) for retina display
devices._

You don't even need CSS, just an unicode character:
<http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25b2/index.htm>

------
kyro
Hey, nice job!

It's a lot cleaner and more sleek.

I do have some feedback, though:

1\. With your redesign, you've brought a submission's point total into the
limelight. Instead of the way it is now where the two main actions are to read
an article and upvote if you like it, you're throwing in a third factor.
You're saying 'this is how many times this story has been upvoted, and you
should take this into consideration when deciding whether to vote on this
story. Oh, and if you decide to upvote, the button is to my right.' You sort
of create a problematic association between point score and the decision to
upvote.

2\. Orange seems to be a highlight color, so using it for the story numbers
doesn't make much sense. The number a submission is on the list is maybe the
least valuable piece of information on the page.

3\. The comment bubbles are a nice touch, but they're placed in a bad spot.
Look at the current HN homepage now and you'll find that all the comment links
stay relatively consistent along a vertical path. It's easy to scan down the
page to find the story with the most active discussion. Now imagine viewing
your redesign and having to dart your eyes to the end of submission titles of
greatly variable lengths just to get to the comment number.

With that's said, I do like the direction you took it in. With a few tweaks,
it may turn out to be a really effective design; so keep playing with it!

------
MartinCron
Hey, don't let the haters get you down. It may not be everyone's cup of tea,
but it shows courage (if not naivete) to muck with a beloved icon.

My advice for anyone has been for years to _abolish the word "redesign" from
your vocabulary_. Seriously. Most redesigns just swap a set of known and
familiar problems with unknown problems. Also, as you can see, any dramatic
change just pisses people off.

Solve one concrete problem at a time.

------
sandGorgon
Why do all these redesigns have serial numbers ? what purpose do they serve ?

Submissions to HN move up and down dynamically - remove the serial numbers and
show _(302 points..25 comments)_ which should be CLICKABLE. This will bring
front and center the only two things that people judge in deciding to read a
submission. Plus it will make it easier to click on a mobile device.

~~~
pacomerh
Indeed, he added the serial numbers because he was thinking in design elements
not in functionality. It's very common practice of designers who don't do much
UX.

------
aresant
Pretty but same core mistake as other redesigns of HN that show up
periodically: current HN shows me more information, in less space.

------
illicium
\- The red list numbers are essentially glorified, distracting, bullets

\- Why does "x Points" look like a button? The word "points" also does not
need to be repeated for each item, or needs to be deemphasized in favor of the
number.

\- Comment links are all over the place and look like a river of grey blobs
running down the page.

\- Article titles need more emphasis than the previously mentioned elements

------
BryanB55
Regardless if you like this design or not, I think HackerNews does need some
kind of redesign. I can remember when I first started reading there were a lot
of things that just weren't intuitive to me. I always wondered why a site for
"hackers" and "coders" seemed so basic in features and looked like something
from the 90's. Particularly, the login and password reset seems kind of
difficult to use. Is there no RSS feed? How do I know when someone replies to
one of my comments? Looking at my profile I have no idea what that stuff is
for... "Max visits" "minaway" "delay"... ?? I still don't know what that is. I
get the speed and simplicity idea but I think there are some user experience
issues that can be solved while still having speed and simplicity.

Maybe I'm the only that feels this way, but just my thoughts. Maybe there is a
good reason to the current design?

~~~
DanBC
There are documentation pages which explain the features you're asking about.
Also, search now works. This may seem really unfriendly, but perhaps friction
is sometimes a good thing? RTFM and "use search" have been the grumpy welcome
of hacker communities for many years, so I guess that's something that has
carried over?

The bottom of this page explains the max visits minaway stuff:
(<http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>)

Maybe years of SLRN and Usenet have spoiled me - I love the HN layout.

I would like a Usenet style scorefile.

~~~
BryanB55
I guess some of it is simply opinion and personal preferences. In my opinion,
good UI doesn't require users to go searching for documentation pages.

------
tedmiston
I'm oddly attracted to the existing design of Hacker News. It suits the
community and purpose of the site well. It's aesthetically spartan, yet
functional.

SIMPLE COLOR SCHEME: it's very simple with just one prominent color and the
rest black, white, and shades of gray (I count the cream background in this).

INTUITIVE: The front page is a list of links sorted by some measurement of
popularity or quality. While you may not notice this upon first glance, it's
something you appreciate, and you at least take away "better stuff gets pushed
up".

EFFICIENT: You can immediately see the number of comments a story has before
you click through. I tend to migrate more towards stories with lively
discussion, rather than the highest stories in the sort.

FAST: The whole front page is 29 KB, and I can do an uncached load in 1
second. There are only 3 images which collectively amount to less than half a
KB.

------
dodoflying
I always use this <http://hckrnews.com/> to browse HN.

~~~
alanh
Is that site sorted by when articles hit front page? The timestamp thing is a
bit unexplained.

------
overgard
Not a commentary on this particular design, but rather just a general thought:
I would argue that the very utilitarian design of this site is actually a
feature rather than a deficiency to be corrected. Generally the point of
design is to send an unspoken message. For a store, you want to send the
message of "we're safe and professional and welcoming", so rounded corners and
soft gradients and open spaces are of much utility there.

On the other hand, for a site designed for self described "hackers", I think
having a very utilitarian as-simple-as-possible not-trying-to-impress-you
design sends the message that "appearances don't matter here, the content is
the focus"

------
benohear
I'd like for these redesigns to start by listing:

#1 The problems they are trying to solve

#2 The qualities of the current design they need to preserve.

The discussion could then focus on whether the two lists are valid and how
successful the redesign is in solving #1 without fucking up #2.

------
abcd_f
Ah, nice try, but No.

Nothing personal, but you are missing the most important point of existing
design - it's the information density and the lack of any whitespace
whatsoever. Whatever the redesign it needs to preserve 20+ stories per page,
it's a must.

------
zachallia
Those vertical lines in the header are dizzying

~~~
pygorex
I also found them to be distracting. Also, I like the thin & sleek header bar,
especially on a mobile.

------
huma
I like the current HN design. It's simple and elegant to my taste. I'm not a
fan of eye candy (for the sake of it). Minimalist approach of HN is why I like
it and what distinguishes it from others. In short, it's the focus on content,
rather than design elements.

But there are a few things I would change:

* Replace the triangle image with a caret. * Remove the points to avoid the popularity bias. * Remove the comments count to avoid the flamebait alarm. * Move the search on the top. * Tone down the color.

I'm most likely in the minority here, but here's my take on it:
<http://i.imgur.com/3iadZ.png>

------
leonlee
1\. Everything is bloated. The comfy header, myriad bubble quotes, and excess
space make HN look like a daycare for those that have an unhealthy obsession
with Wordpress and Dora the Explorer. The precise, technical vibe that exists
with the website simply isn't there.

2\. The bubble quotes are deal-breakers. They take up plenty real estate, are
identical, and don't line up vertically. Your eyes are more attuned to the
"wave" that's going on in the right than the stories themselves.

3\. Taking a second look I half-expected the HN logo and login button to be
circular.

------
meisterbrendan
#1 change I want for HN layout: infinite scroll. #2 change--drop the numbers
for the articles. Unecessary. #3 change--make the comments click area larger.

Everything else is pretty much perfect.

------
septerr
I feel HN does need a face lift. What with it showcasing the designs of
tomorrow everyday and all!

I agree with kijin, the numbers besides the posts seem of no use. We need to
use the space so as to get as many posts as possible in the view without
scrolling, so I wouldn't mind narrowing the distance between the posts either.
Maybe a hover can magnify the post a little. Posts that link to URL could have
some distinct style or something.

~~~
zanny
I don't get what is wrong with current HN really. The site is not meant to
attract customers or be beautiful - it is a news submission aggregator. The
focus needs to be on maximizing information density while maintaining clarity.
Titles, upvote icons, and comment numbers are sufficient to get that across,
so adding "flair" will only detract from that appearance.

Also, I hate sites with huge title bars like that example. It pushes the
actual content further down the page. Sure, this isn't 2002 where having 90%
of your content in the initial view of page the isn't as important anymore,
especially on a site like HN, but still maximizing for information density
makes a users life easier.

------
famousactress
I like all of it but the bubbles. I find those distracting. I do care about
the comment count/links more than the points though. If it were me (not a
designer) I'd stick the '114 pts' right of the arrow, no bubble.. and use the
current points bubble (which looks like a button) for the comments link. This
would actually severely improve my mobile experience where I often hit the
article instead of the comments link.

------
pacomerh
I honestly don't think HN needs a redesign in that sense (if at all). The
mockup proposed here is a nice design for another kind of application, it's
kinda safe and soft. My bet is that HN would benefit more from a data oriented
redesign where users see the stories and their stats more like a work sheet
than a pretty web page. Dynamic data is what users would be interested in, not
bubbles and double spaced rows.

------
jakejake
I actually like this design, it's clean. The only thing I don't like is that
each row is doesn't seem to be vertically aligned. The index number and number
of votes are vertical-middle aligned. The article title seems to have too much
padding at the top. Then the number of comments speech bubble seems to be
bottom-aligned with the article author.

If it was all middle-aligned or top-aligned I think it would look pretty cool.

------
bicknergseng
I like it, but it feels like the gmail redesign with too much space. Some
people like that, I'd prefer to see a maximum number of articles on one page.

~~~
bobbydavid
+1 I really hope this trend of adding uber whitespace is short lived. On a
site like this, I feel like the designer's goal should be to get as many links
on the screen as she can without me feeling the site is overly cluttered.
Solving that problem by blasting me with whitespace frustrates me.

------
XLcommerce
A few people have mentioned information density as being important. I've got
the 'Stylish' chrome extension installed with a userstyle for hn which looks
like this:

table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td{-webkit-column-count: 2; }

2 column layout is v.cool. Makes the front page as well as the comments
section much more readable for me.

example: <http://imgur.com/a/oidEM#1>

~~~
dhx
It is easier for a user to scroll down a long continuous list than to hop back
and forth between two columns. This is particularly true for ordered lists (as
is the case with HN).

The only thing I strongly dislike about HN's current design is that comment
line lengths are far too long[1].

[1] <http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability>

~~~
XLcommerce
It reads like a newspaper. You read one column at a time. No hopping between
columns.

------
sparknlaunch12
I really like it. However the simple UI seems to work and appeal to the
audience.

Posted this link earlier in the week. Beautiful is not always better -
sometimes ugly works better in attracting people!
[http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/keep-it-
simple-...](http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/keep-it-simple-
stupid-kiss-ugly-websites-that-went-viral/)

------
PauloPatricio
A lot of things people said are right. While reading the post, I hoped for
something very clean. But it's not. There are elements and bits that are
unnecessary and/or redundant. All already mentioned in previous comments. And
the solution doesn't need to be "eye-candy". Just go for better type choice
and a effective color palette. Basically, a no fuss, no frills solution.

------
bborud
First impression (5-7 seconds): no, this does not work.

In the current incarnation the page has just the right font size and just the
right amount of vertical space. Strictly speaking it is a bit tight, but since
every other line is grey and in a small font, the spacing of the headings
becomes perfect.

The new design is prettier. But it negatively affects the usability of the
site.

------
da5e
Nice design but it doesn't add anything to the site experience for me. The
header seems too big for orange. I used the option to turn the color of the
header on HN from orange to white to further simplify the look of it. I do
kinda like the number of comments bubble though. I'd love to see a link on the
404 pages.

------
barmstrong
Thanks for putting this together.

Would you be interested in doing a custom theme for <http://ribbot.com> ?

It's an open source HN clone that lets your create custom themes (much like
Tumblr). <https://github.com/barmstrong/ribbot>

------
nextparadigms
It seems the site is distracting me towards the design elements, and I can't
focus as much on the content. At the very least the text font should be larger
and make the comment bubbles smaller. Everything else could be smaller, too.
The focus should be the content not the design itself.

------
AliAdams
*How about something a little more mobile friendly?

At the very least, a pad on clickable areas would be much appreciated (seeing
the comments on a post or upvoting takes a lot of skill to hit that link with
a finger point).

The vertical 'information density' will drop a bit but people don't have much
trouble scrolling.

------
septerr
There are other functional things with HN that need improvement. For instance,
when you edit a comment, and hit update, you should be taken back to the post.
Although I have to edit my comments to fix typos, maybe editing comments
shouldn't be allowed at all?

------
taiyab
Been reading the feedback here and on my blog over the last few hours, and I
have to say I agree with most of it. This was intended to be an initial
concept that was going to be iterated on again and again, so I guess I have
plenty to do to make this better!

------
amac
I like the design of this website; it's fast, easy to use and works both on my
laptop and mobile. It's also something I'm trying to achieve at my startup,
<http://lion.co.uk> though I'm still not there yet.

------
fleitz
Like the design over all but one change I would make is to remove the post
numbering eg. 1 through 20, and then integrate the upvote with the points
button and likely do the points button in the style of the post number. eg.
orange on white.

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kgosser
Much harder to scan the headlines, which is the main job to be done.

I always appreciate people putting their thoughts out there and I hope that
Taiyab will not take the criticism here too literally but instead will try to
learn from the input. Nice attempt!

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DavidPP
I'm much prefer Georgify (alternative CSS for Hacker News) :
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ofjfdfaleomlfanfeh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ofjfdfaleomlfanfehgblppafkijjhmi)

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cowkingdeluxe
This is what HN looks like for me: <http://i.imgur.com/FAElk.png>
<http://i.imgur.com/KqnGO.png>

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aplh
I guess with HN it's a good idea to stick with the old design. A new (fancy)
design would only attract more mainstream users which is not in the interest
of HN in the first place.

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state
What's most telling about this situation is that something that is clearly not
that good nor interesting is at the top of HN. Perhaps this is just 'good'
inasmuch as its HN bait.

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helpbygrace
IMO, most important design value for HN should be readability. But this
design? I don't think so. It just distract viewer's focus.

Current HN has too wide with respect to font size neither. :(

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arunoda
This is great. Seems like it's too fancy. And some people would not like it.
And the comment bubble is distracting. Give it a change. I might gonna use it.

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ekianjo
Your design is nice but not very mobile device friendly. and theres no point
in putting the post position in orange background, its unreadable/invisible.

~~~
chorola
For iOS devices,u can try hackernode or newsyc. :)

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getsat
I find the number of comments are a better indicator of how interesting an
article is than the number of points. I don't even look at the point values.

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statenjason
The larger comment links sell it for me. I use a touchpad, and opening
comments is painful to do with such small font and minimal margins.

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sgt
I'd like a termlib interface for HN.

> fp

1\. Meteor is now MIT licensed (meteor.com) 209 points by nim 6 hours ago |
flag | 66 comments

2\. Another story

> up 1

<up voted>

> 1

<opens up tab>

~~~
diesellaws
How about halfway? <http://diesellaws.com/hacker-news-clean-redesign/>

------
stcredzero
Who says we're a bunch of "old farts?" I feel surrounded by "young
whippersnappers" around here.

------
easonchan42
To me, a good design at least has 16px font size! ;)

And easy to scan, easy to find what I want, fast...etc

Effective Design.

------
mcsheffrey
I'm surprised none of the redesigns I've seen try to create a better mobile
experience.

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wildtype
It's more like you put new style in there, not a redesign.

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snird
check out, stylish userstyle WIP:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871817>

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edzme
feel like if you squish it a bit. make the header less dizzy, and make all the
comments line up on the left -- you're set.

------
aaronblohowiak
you say adobe when i think you mean abode.

------
mkramlich
One of my observations about software and websites has two parts and is
seemingly paradoxical: design matters; and design just does _not_ fucking
matter. For every one beautiful polished friendly UI you can cite that made
it's owners wealthy I can also point you at another app/site which is
ugly/painful and yet it also made it's owners wealthy. I love design, I do --
but fuck design. You're right and you're wrong about it. Make something people
_need_ , that does something that matters for them, and get them to pay for
it, whatever it takes, and you're gold. Plus I increasingly suspect that
"design" matters most precisely when what you're providing is ephemeral or not
really needed. I don't know about you but I sleep better at night thinking I'm
providing something people need or that materially improves their lives, and
not just hawking a commodity pig with lipstick. There are hipsters but also
housewives. There are artists but also managers. There are problem spaces with
dozens of pre-existing software solutions which are all friendly, effective
and pretty -- and you want to stand out from them, so that's hard. And then
there are other problem spaces with no software solution, or no affordable
one, or nothing that runs on the particular platform a certain segment of
customers wants, etc. You're free to pick which of these opportunities to take
a whack at addressing.

Design sometimes matters a lot; but often design just does not matter much.

Automate someone's pain away and get them to pay you for it. There are lots of
opportunities out there with this quality. Don't worry _too_ much about
design.

------
benihana
> _Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design school,
> when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading
> psdtuts.com._

How is this relevant? Also, no one wonders that.

------
badusername
well, it sucks

~~~
Teapot
Yeah. During several years i visited HN from time to time, frowning at the
old-school layout. And promptly left. Until one day, i matured enough, and
realized that simplicity is elegant.

Though, i _dislike_ the low-contrast browngray background. It's annoying for
reading.

Make the layout user-customizable to each login. Let users choose. Is that too
hard?

