[ivankirigin]

Dear HN, just because someone makes a blog post about good UI elements, doesn't mean you need to shit on details big or small about the specific site (e.g. the big footer).

For most people, this is a great way to understand the possibilities for different UIs to test. Instead of just copying others, you can think more abstractly about the UI ideas.

[pc86]

It's not just people's desire to shit on something in order to feel superior (although that's likely quite a bit of it).

It's the fact that if you have a website dedicated to good user interface, and you want to be known as an authority on good user interfaces, and the site on which you intend to launch or grow this authority has a completely FUBARed user interface... I think it's fair to point that out.

Orange text on dark background? Whatever, it's perfectly readable unless you have poor eyesight. Footer taking up a full third of the page with no quickly discernable way to close it? Definite problem and cause for concern regarding your purported authority on that very issue.

[sillysaurus]

Have you seen his conversion statistics?

Good ideas often seem bad. You can't know until you've tried it and measured it. At least he's trying it.

[spiffytech]

A decision than increases metric X is not necessarily a good decision. Consider companies that jack up prices of gasoline and chainsaws after natural disasters. They make a boatload of money doing it, but they also accrue customer bad will.

I'm sure he gets a great sign-up rate from that highly-visible form, but if readers are irritated by it, what negative impact is it having for him?

[badclient]

False comparison. The biggest problem with your example is not lost customer good will but that you're breaking the law and risk getting fined/shut down.

No one says you don't have to be smart in picking the metrics you measure.

[studentrob]

what negative impact is it having for him?

That is a good question. Assuming there is some goal beyond signups (retention?), then if you cannot or are not measuring it, then that is the biggest problem.

[dpe82]

If his goal is sign-ups, why does it matter how irritated those who don't sign up may be?

[windsurfer]

Typically sign-ups are not an end goal, but rather a means to get money or involvement. How has Experts Exchange been doing on that front?

Focusing on metrics and simple minute behaviours while disregarding the big picture lead to evil user interfaces.

[cfqycwz]

It's possible there's no immediately apparent close button because the lack of one forces you to read through the copy to figure out how to close the box, which is probably better for conversion rates. I know I wouldn't have even known there was an option to subscribe otherwise, because I would've headed reflexively straight for a close button in the upper right.

Whether that's ultimately a good UI choice I can't really say. Is not being able to find a close button quickly enough so alienating an experience that it would cause many users to turn away or never come back?

[ulisesrmzroche]

I agree with everything you said, but would like to add that apart from having very poor contrast, which does affect readability, orange text on a dark background is also quite tacky. Halloween colors.

[pc86]

Hadn't even thought of the Halloween bit! That's a good point.

[lttlrck]

The HN header has never spooked me.

[bloodorange]

I read the page at 1920x1200 and I didn't even notice the footer until I started reading the comments in this thread. Once I saw it, it did feel odd though.

Only after this did I realise that one must pay attention to smaller screens too while thinking of UI design. (I am just a developer and almost never did any UI design I must admit - but it was an observation that seemed interesting to me).

[unclebucknasty]

What's particularly interesting about the big footer as a UI problem here is that it underscores the trickiness of balancing good UI with converting. For instance, people came to hate popup windows, and they became anathema to a good UI. However, the reason they were used is because they succeeded in getting the user's attention.

Likewise, in this article, the giant footer takes up half my tablet's page, yet the author does this because it contains his call to action.

It is completely fair to point out the irony of an article about good UI design residing on a site with questionable UI design. And while many of the points made were common sense or already known to me, I did learn and/or refresh a bit and so personally appreciated the article.

Still, it would be good to get more insight about the far trickier question: how to engage and compel users to your call to action without having to resort to offending them with popups, giant footers, etc.

[ulisesrmzroche]

Just to not do anything that offends them. If that means no popups, or giant trailing footers, then that means no popups or giant trailing footers under no circumstance whatsoever.

The call to action has to be non-intrusive. And that's probably going to depend on the type of call to action, though I think that if he had left the footer as it was intended to do (the offer comes after the article is done, once you read the whole thing and you're sold, as is the traditional approach that you know, sells) it would have worked much better.

It's hard to read through a slot, and who wants to do that?

So a marketing page needs to be easy to read and give the call to action at the end.

[kapilkale]

Thank you. I really wish the #1 comment here were something debating the merits of the article rather than questioning the author's ability to implement his own advice.

[kmfrk]

On one hand this is true; on the other, this is a result of the horizontal (flat) treatment of comments that make pedantic comments appear the same as deeper ones.

The one upvote button just means that people agree, not that they think it's an important, insightful comment, and that's why we see those comments float to the top.

As the OP, in this case and others, I wouldn't too much into those comments, because I too know how skull-numbingly hairsplitting and pedantic comments here can be - or seem.

[bpatrianakos]

Or seem? That's very polite (and smart) of you to say. I'll be the dumb one that comes out and says they are pedantic. Period. We have some great ones and a lot of "I'm smarter than this guy, look at me, [commence pedantry]" comments. If they appear pedantic they are.

[TeMPOraL]

You are free to chose a different topic in this thread to contribute to if you don't feel like discussing the big footer. You can talk about more than one topic per submission; that's why HN is a tree, not a linear board.

Also, to "shit on details big or small" is, in other words, to provide (somewhat constructive) feedback, which helps both the site author (if he/she reads it) and us here learn and grow. This is the whole point of HN.