I created this for myself, which means it is highly opinionated. Some will love it and others will hate it and that's ok. I have been using it for the last two years and there is no way I can go back to the old HN. That said it is equally possible that most of you do not like it as much. And really that is fine. There are more important things for us to argue about. :)
Feel free to reach out at tuhin @ me.com or ping @tuhin on twitter in case you guys have more constructive feedback.
1) It is not black it is #111 :)
2) Rules in design are meant to be broken. It is good to know the rules nevertheless, so that you know which ones to break.
The biggest reason of all, it lets you sync sources across all devices. Sync saved stories. Notification and communication take a backseat when you can easily send push notification to a much larger audience that is your entire userbase. Just thought it was important to mention that.
I would really extend this to the following qualities that people in the field of building products should try, to the best of their abilities, to be good at. They might not become the best at each one, but enough to become potent and in the very least better than they were before trying:
-Understand technology. What it takes to build, scale, maintain and fix things. What are the affordances and benefits of one approach over the other.
-Understand design. Not just pretty pixels (in fact that is the least important part, IMHO). But the WHY. How it affects people, what the goals are, why the current system is broken or why it does not exist.
- Understand Marketing. How do you convince others that your product (idea or finished) is THE one they should vouch for. Why should they invest time and money into it. How can you make them believe that you know what you are doing and better than any bad experiences they have had with products of that kind. Selling/Marketing is not evil. It is a necessary (evil). Many humble and smart people fail to understand that.
I totally understand it is very hard for one person to be great or even good at all three. But hey most don't even try, so you are already better then them the first day you try.
- I would really improve the quality of socks. Especially design wise. I would have subscribed in an instant but then looked at the lineup and was dissapointed.
- Lifestyle business is as much about the experience as it is about the product. Make me feel happy. Everlane is one of the best online experiences I have seen. Especially since you have a simple proposition and only one product to sell you can do a lot in the experience factor without making things unusable.
To be honest, when you start designing generic icons like Messages/chat, things start to get pretty hazy. But I like how Hipchat is taking this as a chance to create a better icon.
Also to play devil's advocate, the blue is the an evolution of the Hipchat blue, and the stripes an addition from the Messages/iMessages icons on iOS.
Try using something more colorful like a landscape or bokeh so that the perception of parallax feels natural and impactful. I had totally missed the parallax had it not been for the comments here.
So essentially the promise and dream of the post-PC era comes at the cost of killing the current golden age of Computers? I would say we are being hyperbolic here.
For what it is worth I, (and I know of so many other people) have an iPad but end up spending my entire time (around 10-12 hours everyday) in front of a Mac. This is not going to change anytime in the near future because quite frankly the iPad is just not capable of doing all that I want to do on a "computer".
So yes. there is a post-PC era, but think of it as a new species that co-exists than an evolution that simply eliminates the last one.
I created this for myself, which means it is highly opinionated. Some will love it and others will hate it and that's ok. I have been using it for the last two years and there is no way I can go back to the old HN. That said it is equally possible that most of you do not like it as much. And really that is fine. There are more important things for us to argue about. :)
Feel free to reach out at tuhin @ me.com or ping @tuhin on twitter in case you guys have more constructive feedback.