Ask HN: How did Hacker News take off?

[marco-fiset]

I've been an avid Hacker News reader for the past 6 months. I like the content and the discussions that spawn here. But I'll put it straight: usability sucks. And it's ugly. How did such a badly designed website became so wildly popular? I know that the content is responsible for a lot of traffic, but why didn't anyone just build a better alternative in the last 2-3 years?

This is not a rant or anything, I'm just trying to understand how Hacker News became what it is today, with such a simple implementation.

[patio11]

Forums, like social networks, are networks effects businesses. HN grew from a seed set among YC people, applicants, pg's essay audience, likeminded individuals. After there is a community and conversations, they pull in other people. (I randomly got drawn in when someone referenced my blog some years ago, and I just happened to stay. etc, etc)

Assume you have the magic wand of product design. You wave it and create The Best Forum Ever. That's great. I don't use it because I use HN and you have no reason for me to switch. People who want to read what I have to say can't find what I have to say on your forum, because I'm not on it. Sum up that interaction over the entire space of possible users and it leads to a forum with 0 users and no content.

If you (hypothetically) want to create a competitor, your big problem is not creating a better designed website. It is, instead, convincing a seed set of users to use your new website even in the absence of much content on it, and having those users be such wonderful/connected/popular/thought-provoking/etc people such that people will join your site just to hang out with them.

[csense]

> Usability sucks

Could you be a little more specific? What actions are difficult to do with the current interface? What specific modifications would make them easier?

I think the design of HN is really tight and focused. My one complaint is that it's difficult to go back and find ancient comments I've made for later citation.

> And it's ugly.

It doesn't load hundreds of images and enormous JavaScript libraries. It doesn't leak memory and cause my system to swap. It doesn't spam obnoxious ads with sound everywhere. This makes it beautiful to me -- almost a nod to what the Web was like in the early days, back when completely unstyled content was still good enough for a lot of sites.

The color scheme doesn't matter to me as long as I can read the text.

[tptacek]

HN is better looking than Reddit, which is much more popular. Both sites tend to give lie to popular (among us nerds) theories of how well-designed a site needs to be to serve its audience.

[simonhughes22]

People migrated from Reddit as it became too mainstream and less tech focused. Reddit has a similar design. I like the simplicity personally

[pasbesoin]

Reddit was great when it started. It gradually diluted.

HN was opened to the public, who then had access to already tight and information-dense conversation started by YC members. HN was, at that time, some of the best, most focused, highest signal-to-noise conversation one could find on the open Web.

Usability is in good part determined by the users. In addition to the length of time involved since its inception and initial tweaks to appearance, there is the matter of what the core HN population was and, I hope, continues to be interested in: Communication. Getting knowledge and ideas across. Sorting the most valuable (as determined by the community) to prominence.

HN continues to do pretty well at this.

And even in its graphical design... Well, the Verdana typeface was developed by one of most prominent type designers, for Microsoft, to be particularly readable on-screen. (Admittedly, screens at the time were still mostly CRT's. But even with LCD's, for quite a number of years the dot pitch did not change all that much.)

Text is nice and black. It's on a light gray background rather than white, to reduce eye strain.

Just because it doesn't look like a highly customized version of Bootstrap version whatever, doesn't mean it's not good at what it does.

I have seen complaints about usability on mobile devices. Overall, I think this simply hasn't been enough of a concern, nor considered to be having enough of a negative impact, for pg and crew to take it on.

Also, realize that any number of site and design decisions may and I suspect are made without any publicity or acknowledgement. pg and moderators fix problems and determine optimizations, and some of these depend upon a lack of publicity.

It might even be that pg doesn't particularly want the influence of "momentary" attention in conversations. Enhancing mobile usability might be viewed as contributing to a decline in the quality of conversation and/or voting.

I'm not saying this is happening. But I am saying that, with respect to some aspects of the site, sometimes you have to read between the lines if you're seeking the why of it.

Unlike reddit, there has been no private messaging facility on HN. pg has stated, IIRC, that he didn't want to / see the value in putting the effort into developing one. But... the decision might also be viewed as lessening the avenues for "submarine" conversations and the development of cliques.

He did support a third party initiative for notification of responses to comments. And your profile does allow you to state means of contact outside of HN. But there's a bit more friction in those means, and perhaps to good effect.

Finally, pg has stated repeatedly that -- in what started out as a side-project that was specifically YC focused -- he puts the effort he does put into HN where he thinks it adds the most value. E.g. comment quality, spam and destructive participation whack-a-mole, etc.

Not that pg needs me to speak up for him. But, to state what I've observed from my perspective and so perhaps contribute my bit to overall efficiency, here.

[tjr]

I disagree that it's ugly. Usability has been fine for me on the desktop, where I use it most. Mobile usability is weak, but I'm usually not trying to participate in forums on my phone.

That said, I would probably use a forum that I did find ugly if the content was interesting enough.

[e3pi]

The more time you spend on HN, you'll discover and become more paranoid how large the iceberg is supporting its simple visible surface. Vast lisp AI kraken and spermaceti entangle down in its knotty and murky abyss. Are you prepared to go down this rabbit hole?

[marssaxman]

How exactly does "usability suck"? It looks great to me - all content, no bullshit. Only thing I'd change are those bizarre "expired link" errors, which I can only explain as a deliberately perverse incentive against discussing yesterday's news.

[runjake]

Aside from the weird link expiration issues, I wouldn't call HN a bad design.

It's simple, efficient, and information dense. Page load times are quick because it's not having to load CSS and JS frameworks. Simplicity isn't a bad thing.

[Sealy]

Because we took the red pill as we want to see how far the rabbit hole goes.

Fancy graphics are for the mainstream crowd who took the blue pill, want to wake up and believe what they want to believe.