[kijin]

Completely agreed. The icons are not only excessively detailed for their small size, but also sit rather awkwardly in relation to the rounded-rectangle container. The top right corner of every Github page now looks like the notification area of an old Linux desktop with an amateur-designed theme.

Every minor redesign Github has released over the last couple of years increasingly reek of "designed by programmers". But Github deserves better than that. Please get real designers.

[amirmc]

The redundancy is a little irritating.

I could tell what buttons did simply from the text (and they were useful) e.g 'unwatch', 'your fork' etc. Now there's more space taken up with the text and the icon.

The icons don't seem to provide additional info in any way. Perhaps that's because Github would like to switch from text to icons eventually (with text+icons in the interim)? I hope not, as it would mean way too many things for people (esp novices) to get their heads around.

[kijin]

> Perhaps that's because Github would like to switch from text to icons eventually?

Like Gmail's new icon-only interface? I hope not! It's difficult enough for people to figure out what Gmail's icons represent.

[regularjack]

You can set Gmail's Button labels to "Text" under Settings -> General.

[steve-howard]

I'm still pissed that Gmail's icon redesign wastes tons of space and is only marginally better when I put it in compact mode. I'm on a 14" laptop here, not all of us are carrying around 22" monitors in our pockets!

[Sevein]

Well, the differences between them are quiet significant! Gmail's icon are too horsey.

[zachanker]

In addition they changed the private repo indicator so it's no longer a very obvious yellow background, but a single label that says "PRIVATE".

It was actually useful to have a very obvious indicator that your repo was private and nobody else could see it.

[cemregr]

Can you tell me what other redesigns Github has done feel undesigned? I personally think Github has a pretty great design team.

[kijin]

Just off the top of my head, stacking row upon row of toolbars and metadata on top of every repository, so the first real file is actually 500px down the page. Also, excessive use of icons where text labels would be much clearer, as other commenters have said.

There were several posts on HN over the last couple of years where people complained about these and other issues.

[dasil003]

I think people on HN complain way too much about Github's design. Sure you can nitpick this stuff, but Github has always had above-average design. Your comment about design-by-programmer is not really warranted in the context of the monstrosities that the term originally applied to. If you want to hold Github to a higher standard because they have such a great product then fine, but there's no need to be so disparaging.

Github's design is not and has never been terrible. And furthermore, hiring a "real designer" will not solve the problem because the core issue is that Github is a complex product; throwing a designer in there who doesn't understand the nuances of how git is used in the wild is not going to help. There are many different audiences and many different conflicting problems to be solved. The reason there's so much meta information stacked at the top is because the meta information is more commonly used then the file contents in most cases. I agree it's not the most intuitive, but on the other hand there's not an obviously primary role for this page and things are reasonably well organized and delineated based on purpose. I've used almost every single link there and there's not much that doesn't deserve to be front and center.

As for the icon redesign, they are trying to establish a visual language so that the masses of information they are publishing are more readily digestible. This is not something that happens overnight, instead you have to use the icons for a while before they sink and start to pay dividends. I'm not saying Github is successful, but I think people on HN and indeed the Internet in general are way to quick to criticize redesigns based on first impressions.

[there]

Also, excessive use of icons where text labels would be much clearer, as other commenters have said.

As a non-designer, I always use text labels in my applications because I can't make good graphics/icons, but it always seems like the applications lack polish because of it. I guess there is a happy medium to be found between no icons and the strict only-ambiguous-icons like Google switched to with Android 4 and their recent web property redesigns.

[cookiecaper]

Interestingly it seems that "real designers" are whomever you like the most. It seems mostly to be a matter of taste.