[KronisLV]

Tried out all of their themes on the welcome page, which seems like a nice showcase of what's available when you switch the themes: https://research.exoticsilicon.com/welcome

Here's the aspects that I personally enjoyed:

  - Tropical nights: this feels like a pleasant theme on the eyes, almost like an IDE dark mode
  - Nitrate memories: another theme that feels fairly readable, with the contrast being okay in *most* places
  - Light pastels: this one dials down the colors a little bit so they're not as distracting

That said, when most of the web looks more or less the same way, it feels like this site stands out too much and the design detracts from the experience, in my eyes. For example, opening the page linked in this post, you're confronted with colorful shadows, titles (the questions) in a serif font that's not as bold as the answers that come in a sans serif font, a static background for when you scroll the content that's an image that you can't quite read.

I'd probably just have a chuckle about the quirky design and go browse other sites that might have the information that I'm looking for, due to my eyes scanning them more quickly and easily, much like you'd look at data in a spreadsheet (sans annoying pop-ups and other dark patterns that web is plagued with). But you know what? Their website design is none of my business, it's fine for them to make their own choices and run it how they desire, even if some of the answers on this particular page are a bit on the nose.

Can't say whether we'd benefit from more or less of that, in general, though.

[rektide]

I really really miss the multi-skinned website thing. Having multiple personalities for your site was such just a rip roaring cool thing. That whole idea of a site being an experience has gotten simmered away. In many cases that reduction of friction is due & appreciated, but there's something to be said for having a bit of an experience too, even if it is a kind of shallow/transactional bit.

My first webshack internship had a nice website with like 20+ very slick early web designs folks could switch between. So cool.

There's the Css Zen Garden, a set of html elements to practice your design chops on. That was so the spirit of web design, highlighted so powerfully how bodaciously rad having html structured information & css styling as separate entities was, rather than as almost all UI toolkit do having the two concerns more intermingled. Zen Garden Forever. https://www.csszengarden.com/

[JohnFen]

> That said, when most of the web looks more or less the same way, it feels like this site stands out too much and the design detracts from the experience, in my eyes.

The site's design is not to my taste -- but I seriously love that it doesn't look like almost all of the rest of the web.

Most of the web all looks the same. I applaud Exotic Silicon for pushing back against that.