[girzel]

I feel the same way, and as someone who has struggled to make his open source projects look like anything other than roaring garbage, I am perplexed, and jealous, and guess somehow a little hopeful?

I can totally imagine making something like Sir Hat (sorry) a part-time project and, in an alternate universe where I am a better coder and more dedicated than I actually am, producing something super solid after a few years. I cannot, however, imagine any universe in which I would produce something that looked as good as this.

I recommended it to the Emacs developers (who are considering moving to some sort of forge-alike site) in part because it seems to fit the FSF's principles, but more because the aesthetics are what Emacs should aspire to: plain text that looks good.

[kick]

What exactly do you think is so revolutionary about its design? I love it, personally, but I love it because it's not revolutionary. It takes some basic design principles and sticks to them militantly, which is sort of how Drew seems to handle everything. It's a successful approach.

Some tips:

If you're going for a flat look (which you should), don't go the Google direction.

* Make it actually flat; no shadows. Shadows are your enemy. Only use shadows if absolutely necessary, and even then think twice.

* Use solid lines to separate buttons and other colorful objects from the page. This is more accessible than shadows, and looks pretty instead of Google's weird 2014 pseudoskeuomorphism.

Use accessible colors!

* You have no excuse for using a color scheme that isn't accessible; accessible color schemes generally work better for people who aren't design-inclined, anyway.

* There are a bunch of sites you can use to check whether a color scheme is accessible, and there are also a bunch that have a bunch of accessible color schemes already laid out for you.

* Do not believe yourself when trying to justify an inclusion of a pretty color that makes the site less accessible. I know the color is pretty. There are a lot of colors that won't make the site harder to view, though!

Don't break from your design. Ever.

* Nobody likes using an application that has seven different styles of interaction and looks like it's from three different eras depending on the page you're on.

[girzel]

What you've described is exactly what I like about it! Just nice visible text, interactive elements are very evident, your eye goes in the right direction, and there's "nothing special" about it.

The tips you've provided are how not to screw up an excellent design. Not how to get an excellent design to begin with.

[brigandish]

Thanks for the tips.

I wasn't aware of what an accessible colour scheme is, a bit of searching and clicking led me to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines guidelines [1]. Now I know to search for something like "WCAG colour scheme" there seem to be many more resources that are a bit less dry.

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

[indymike]

There's some really good advice right here:

Take some basic design principles and stick to them