Usability Post
usabilitypost.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Usability Post covers interface design and usability, with posts on UI patterns, font smoothing, and OS X interface tweaks.
What HN saysHN commenters point to it as a place to read about usability and design, alongside Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think.
71HN people shared it
23linked it in comments
75stories submitted
1.1Kstory points
3 years agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Please Stop “Fixing” Font Smoothing (2012)10 people · 141 points · first shared 2012 · 85 comments on HN
- 2New UI Pattern: Website Loading Bars4 people · 191 points · first shared 2013 · 124 comments on HN
- 3Google Authorship Search Listing Blindness4 people · 1 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 4The Scroll Up Bar3 people · 192 points · first shared 2014 · 112 comments on HN
- 5A mild case of borderitis2 people · 87 points · first shared 2013 · 10 comments on HN
- 6De-clutter Your Interface With Hover Controls2 people · 26 points · first shared 2008 · 16 comments on HN
- 7OS X Lion Interface Tweaks2 people · 5 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 8The Dark Side Of Usability2 people · 5 points · first shared 2011 · 2 comments on HN
- 9Design is Choice [Hacker friendly Design Post]2 people · 4 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 10Why Nobody Uses Opera2 people · 4 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 11Designing UX Exchange2 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 12A Guide to Choosing Colors for Your Brand2 people · 2 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 13It’s the User Experience, Stupid2 people · 1 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 14The 1Kb CSS Grid, Part 12 people · 1 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 15Usability Tip: Use Verbs as Labels on Buttons1 people · 53 points · first shared 2008 · 23 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
nickcharlton · 2009-07-02
In regards to books, I would recommend at least checking out Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think, possibly some other design orientated books and then read up upon usability in general.
For example, take a look at: http://www.usabilitypost.com/ or http://www.uxbooth.com/ and http://useit.com/
You may wish to find a usability consultant too, or look for someone who hasn't used your app before with experience in this area to give you a few pointers.
richsaunders · 2017-11-14
I'm one of those people. Still using US$100 Asus Zenfone 4, running Android K; with 8GB internal memory and 1GB RAM. My phone still looking and running good, no scratches, and no lags. I only use 1.56GB internal memory for apps, nothing fancy, just some apps that I truly need.
The reason I'm not considering to upgrade my Android is because of this article: It's The User Experience, Stupid.[0] I already see Android O in action, and some newest Android devices, but I don't think it's worth my money. So, I'm planning to keep using my 3 year old phone until it's dead.
[0]: http://usabilitypost.com/2008/12/03/its-the-user-experience-stupid/
ianstormtaylor · 2011-12-30
Thank you. I've been frustrated with all of the comments making these same mistakes this past month on Hacker News.
Thought: one problem that might lead to the confusion is that in some situations aesthetics is the where the solution to the problem lies (think apparel design or poster design). In those cases, the other problems have long been solved and all that is left to iterate on is the appearance. http://www.usabilitypost.com/2011/11/11/timeless-fashion/
Side note: it's interesting how people are quick to admit Steve Jobs was a genius and built great products, but they fail to take away what was probably the thing he advocated most.
samirahmed · 2011-12-20
I also agree that the transition between each stage is too slow, both vertically and horizontally.
A personal opinion. I would not have used a color scheme that sombre colors, I would recommend something that is has a little more excitement, blue or orange, in case you haven't thought about it in the past, heres an interesting link
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2008/09/29/a-guide-to-choosing-colors-for…
pveugen · 2011-12-20
This Quora thread might be an interesting starting point if you're looking for freelancers:
- http://www.quora.com/Who-are-the-best-web-designers-under-25?q=Best+de…
Strolling through Dribble might also give you some inspiration:
- http://dribbble.com/
The UX world gathers on blogs like:
- http://uxbooth.com
- http://konigi.com
- http://usabilitypost.com
- http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com
- http://johnnyholland.org
Some of them might offer job postings as well.
pngat2x · 2015-01-04
I've built my experience mainly through exposure to native mobile. I find that the walled gardens and constraints you work within tend to help focus what you're creating. It's easier to tell when something looks or feels "wrong" when you're looking at apps that are built to match the OS's ecosystem, instead of the latest web trends.
When you work with a standardized set of UI elements on a canvas of limited size, you tend to start thinking about the interface in terms of modular actions and tasks, which you can repurpose later when scaling up to tablet or desktop web. You also have a good basis to simplify these tasks further when branching out to wearables and in-car devices.
----
At this point, Google, Apple, and Microsoft each have pretty defined ideologies and UI — check out their guidelines:
https://developer.android.com/design/material/index.html
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/C…
http://dev.windows.com/en-us/design
----
Check out some of the sessions from WWDC and Google I/O too:
https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2014/
https://www.google.com/events/io/io14videos
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There are also a lot of great blogs out there that have pinpointed info on different parts of interface design. Sometimes these info-morsels can be easier to digest than starting a full course in UX. This is definitely not a comprehensive list, so look around, and get your RSS client fired…
alx__ · 2022-05-20
First off, avoid changing that property. It doesn't improve things
10 years later, still relevant -
https://usabilitypost.com/2012/11/05/stop-fixing-font-smoothing/
Secondly, the issue may be the font being used. I don't recognize it, but probably not optimized for modern web screens. Or a "converted" typeface originally designed for print
yupyup54133 · 2021-11-24
I always use the links terminal browser test. If the site is usable in my terminal with the `links https://usabilitypost.com/2012/11/05/stop-fixing-font-smoothing/` command then it is well done. Chances are, if you are using any type of special font rendering to fix a UI issue you are also doing other things on that page that will cause it to not display properly in links. Also, shout out to the author for having their article actually render well in links!
dchest · 2016-03-07
Why would you force your users to have inferior font smoothing? This is really bad, don't do it. Subpixel rendering is there for a good reason, don't turn it off. http://usabilitypost.com/2012/11/05/stop-fixing-font-smoothing/
jayflux · 2016-02-12
I agree, some newspaper's web offerings have been awful in terms of page load and user experience.
Not singling any of them out, but I went to a popular UK newspaper's site; it loads hundreds of assets and almost crashes my tablet, and even once it loads half the screen real estate was taken up by a big advert and tiny font in the article.
The Guardian (and BBC News) seem to be the only ones taking this seriously so far, and maybe coincidence but I now go to those sites a lot more these days when I'm on my tablet.
Some of these companies should take the web more seriously (rather than some side offering they don't really care about) before its too late.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/b2c6502f-7b54-4fde-9695-9c…
http://usabilitypost.com/2014/05/09/patrick-hamann-on-making-the-guard…
blwsk · 2015-08-06
I found this post useful regarding small caps. It seems as though if the typeface contains the glyphs and you're using Chrome or Safari, you can use font-feature-settings: "smcp"
http://usabilitypost.com/2014/05/10/using-small-caps-and-text-figures-…
sehr · 2014-05-27
> When I scroll to the top, I can see the top.
Instead, when you begin to scroll to the top you can see the top. If you have an iphone, it's navbar behavior is identical to this.
http://usabilitypost.com/2014/05/24/the-scroll-up-bar/
wallawe · 2014-05-27
From HN front page yesterday:
http://usabilitypost.com/2014/05/24/the-scroll-up-bar/
fuzzywalrus · 2013-09-19
Chrome/Safari support subpixel rendering, using OS X's font renderer. Subpixel rendering works well for black on white but looks awful in reverse
See:
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2012/11/05/stop-fixing-font-smoothing/
k-mcgrady · 2013-08-20
This looks really nice. I think I've saw one of the browsers using that space at the top for it's loading bar which looks very similar (I'm not positive on this - it could have been a mobile browser).
Edit:
Readme says it was inspired by Medium and YouTube - http://www.usabilitypost.com/2013/08/19/new-ui-pattern-website-loading…
tuananh · 2013-08-20
More on website loading bar: http://www.usabilitypost.com/2013/08/19/new-ui-pattern-website-loading…
brigade · 2012-12-21
I could have sworn http://www.usabilitypost.com/2012/11/05/stop-fixing-font-smoothing/ was just recently linked here.
Read it. Tanooki is wrong.
sgdesign · 2012-10-29
I would just like to point out that Stack Exchange doesn't use 99designs anymore. Here's just an example:
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2011/04/22/designing-ux-exchange/
orionlogic · 2011-03-17
Glossy embossed days are far behind. Subtle gradients, trying to achive 3d in 2d space with less cluttered effects.
I would say very in tune with Apple's next design iteration. http://www.usabilitypost.com/2011/03/01/simpler-ui-in-lion/
antidaily · 2010-02-15
This one is 1kb
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/05/29/the-1kb-css-grid-part-1/
cloudhead · 2009-06-16
Also, check out the article @ usabilitypost.com for the full story:
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/06/16/introducing-less-a-better-css/
chrismorgan · 2024-03-25
Three things:
① I believe this only affects macOS, and has no effect on any other platform.
② There’s no such property as font-smoothing. Only -webkit-font-smoothing and -moz-osx-font-smoothing, with their different values.
③ Attempting to control this is highly controversial. You may prefer it one way, but others may prefer it otherwise. See, for example, https://usabilitypost.com/2012/11/05/stop-fixing-font-smoothing/. (Note that discussion of these things tends to be from 7–15 years ago. I have no idea what the present situation is; I know macOS largely eschews subpixel antialiasing these days, so maybe the effect of this property has changed now, or maybe it literally does nothing, I don’t use macOS.) As a generalisation, you should not do things like this, but leave it to the platform or the user to decide. Features like this don’t tend to end up part of the standardised web platform, because you normally shouldn’t be able to control them, and when people control them, they’re normally doing so in order to work around platform-specific issues, or just because they’re copying and pasting what someone else did without understanding.
chunkyslink · 2010-03-08
Here is a restaurant website for a UK based chain that we just launched (in Dec 09).
http://giraffe.net
I feel its both attractive and functional. Its primarily supposed to be a website (i.e used from a normal web browser) but will work fine on your iphone.
There is no flash but we've used jquery extensively for 'flashiness'.
There is also prominent twitter/flickr and facebook engagement throughout.
There are menu's (web based and pdf choices), offers and locations. Try googling for 'giraffe menu' - the menu is the top hit.
We spent a while fine tuning the location finder http://giraffe.net/restaurants which uses the google API to provide 'a nearest list' functionality. Once you chosen a restaurant it will also provide you with a list of other restaurants close to your choice.
The site www.usabilitypost.com did a feature on the location finder as we've also done something cool with the location search box.
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/11/30/search-dropdown-hybrid-box/
The idea behind the site is simple. Get people to the restaurants. We've had a lot of feedback that suggests that it does just that and we're quite proud of the result.