Part of me was surprised with the conservative design sentiment and backlash this post received, but part of me had a feeling that a community as critical as Hacker News would reject the ideas presented in the article.

Actually implementing this design might be bad for Hacker News because the UI has become locked-in over time, but at least it challenges the status quo and makes for a fun weekend project ;)

This is great feedback Sam. These points are all valid. However, I believe that mental-models are influenced by design. People learn interaction systems regardless of their design merit. I think part of why the current Hacker News site is successful is because the design has become locked-in over time. This has —to some extent— influenced the substance of the interaction. Many websites and apps become successful regardless of design. Things like network effects, compliance, virality, etc. provided a user base, and users adapt to the UI in ways that dictate usage. Changing the fundamentals might not be a good solution in this case, but at least it challenges the status quo and makes for a fun weekend project ;)

By the way, I love what you guys are doing at FarmLogs. Keep up the good work.

Ah good points Kyle. I think you might be right. It would be interesting to review the results from list scanning usability studies. I think this redesign will increase the rate of batch scanning, but perhaps decrease the ability to take in the entire context of the submission.

Hahaha no worries. There is a lot of hype circling the Apple Watch, but I think it can be a game changer because of its unique abilities. The iPad was, more or less, a large iPhone, which is great but not fundamentally different. I think the Apple Watch opens up new possibilities that could give way to huge business successes.

Why is that?

This is an amazing display of dedication. The world need more people like this.

Seems like Wordpress is trying to steal Ghost's thunder.

I agree. How would you suggest doing it differently?

Why yellow? Yellow is often used to represent libertarian thought. Is Occupy a libertarian group? My guess is that it's probably a mixed bag of socialists, liberals, and libertarians. Just like the tea party is a mixed bag of republicans, conservatives, and libertarians.

BTW the tea party needs some serious re-branding...

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