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Re:Why do all websites look the same? by cabalamat on Friday November 09, 2018 @04:28PM (#18418188)
> They mostly exist because they are convenient, useful, and logical.

What happens, when, in the words of the article, you "Do not be constrained by questions of usability, legibility, and flexibility"?

The answer, it appears, is their re-design of HN: https://interface.fh-potsdam.de/future-retro/HN/ which I find unusable.

Re:Why do all websites look the same? by Retric on Friday November 09, 2018 @05:05PM (#18418438)
That's shockingly bad.

The expanded view with lines between comments and their parents which scroll independently is literally the worst website UI I have ever seen. And I recall some terrible flash abominations.

Re:Why do all websites look the same? by zipwitch on Friday November 09, 2018 @06:52PM (#18419035)
The pure white screen has a certain aesthetic appeal, but the total lack of content puts it considerably below the original. (I assume this must be an intended effect, given the complete absence of error messages.)
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by singingboyo on Friday November 09, 2018 @05:56PM (#18418729)
The medium redesign is also awful. Its inability to handle my portrait-oriented monitor did trigger a sense of childish amusement (truncating POOR to POO) but it's entirely impossible to read anything using it.
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by nine_k on Friday November 09, 2018 @11:23PM (#18419925)
> Do not be constrained by questions of usability, legibility, and flexibility

That is, create a work of art (as opposed to utility). Okay, art is nice, too.

But mixing artistry and utility is quite hard. Designing a nice, livable house, or a store, is a craft. Building fancy sand castles is a (pastime) art. But mixing the fancy free-form with being actually usable by thousands takes lots of work, resources, and time, because what you'd have to build is a cathedral. (If you think modern technology makes it simple, look at the history of building the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.)

Re:Why do all websites look the same? by rytill on Friday November 09, 2018 @04:52PM (#18418355)
Actually wouldn't be terrible if the comments appeared in a more orderly fashion. Right now, they spawn randomly and can even overlap which makes it actually unreadable.
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by reaperducer on Friday November 09, 2018 @06:41PM (#18418977)
I can't imagine what they think someone with disabilities is supposed to do with that.
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by cannonedhamster on Sunday November 11, 2018 @03:17PM (#18428343)
They don't care about people with disabilities. They don't even care about people without disabilities. It's not usable for people who are not differently abled.
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by greenhatman on Friday November 09, 2018 @05:39PM (#18418648)
That was a pretty hilarious experience.
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by smhost on Friday November 09, 2018 @07:33PM (#18419184)
the day/night button on the bottom right is genius satire
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by Retr0spectrum on Friday November 09, 2018 @06:05PM (#18418771)
The "redesign" is a joke, right?
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by greendestiny_re on Friday November 09, 2018 @11:59PM (#18420040)
Only an artist could come up with this: http://prntscr.com/lgk7x0
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by booleandilemma on Friday November 09, 2018 @06:54PM (#18419048)
Is this brutalist design?
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by anthk on Friday November 09, 2018 @09:44PM (#18419635)
No, brutalist is HN, lobste.rs or the Oreilly CD Bookshelf. Or any Unix CS guide with those square Motif-like buttons.
Re:Why do all websites look the same? by polynomial on Friday November 09, 2018 @07:30PM (#18419172)
That site could induce a seizure in David Parsons.