[tedmiston]

I'm oddly attracted to the existing design of Hacker News. It suits the community and purpose of the site well. It's aesthetically spartan, yet functional.

SIMPLE COLOR SCHEME: it's very simple with just one prominent color and the rest black, white, and shades of gray (I count the cream background in this).

INTUITIVE: The front page is a list of links sorted by some measurement of popularity or quality. While you may not notice this upon first glance, it's something you appreciate, and you at least take away "better stuff gets pushed up".

EFFICIENT: You can immediately see the number of comments a story has before you click through. I tend to migrate more towards stories with lively discussion, rather than the highest stories in the sort.

FAST: The whole front page is 29 KB, and I can do an uncached load in 1 second. There are only 3 images which collectively amount to less than half a KB.