An inspirational collection of UI details/hacks | Hacker News Reader

An inspirational collection of UI details/hacks

littlebigdetails.com

84 pointsFloriz14 comments

I'd argue this Twitter item is cute but a bad example:

http://littlebigdetails.com/post/2922618704/offcial-twitter-...

There's absolutely no indication that doing this is possible. Clever UI is neat but if your users never know it's there, you're wasting your time. A little handle, some sort of visual indicator that an action is possible would make for a better interface. Twitter (neé Tweetie) is my favorite Twitter app for iPhone or OS X, but this kind of easter egg functionality is sprinkled throughout and it just makes me sigh.

I'll give you another one: do a two finger drag downwards on any tweet in the iPad app, and you can reveal the whole thread (assuming there is any. Ie "in reply to")

The quora item looks like a leak to me, it confirms that a userid is valid before the credentials have been entered.

There was a lot of discussion about that one. That's also one of the purposes of my blog, to stimulate dialogue around these kind of details.

In this case, some answers on the topic can be found here I think: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/415/decode-email-address-...

I think it's because they're using FB for registration -

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1594596

FB no longer functions this way for me - but Quora populates my full name and pic right after entering my email address (i.e. no credential submission required).

If profiles and e-mails are public (like at GitHub), it's not revealing anything new. Does make it easier though.

That's a good point, I guess if you did it with Gravatar instead it might make more sense as there wouldn't be any data leakage.

The iOS mail inbox thing has been getting a lot of hype lately but I feel obligated to point out that Blackberry has been doing it BETTER, for a lot longer.

When you are browsing messages in Blackberry, if you get a new one it will temporarily pop the sender/subject line RIGHT THERE in the screen wherever you are! This notification let's you instantly see new messages coming in without having to leave your place at all.

HUGE benefits of this are, for example, when texting multiple people, if you get a text in from Person A while in the middle of typing a text to Person B, you can revise your in-progress text based on that new information from Person A, potentially avoiding saying something embarrassing, etc.

I hate to be negative, because I love the overall idea of the site... but for something so focused on minor details, all the little grammatical errors bug me, perhaps more than they should.

Will ask a native speaker to help me out with that. Should be fixed soon!

Little bad detail, only the character is clickable on the next page button: http://imgh.us/lbd.png (edit: Seems fixed now)

Also, Facebook removed the "auto show image at login" feature, as it was a simple way to probe for email addresses. I think Quora should too.

Also, if I'm not at the first or last page (meaning there are two arrows), I never know which one to click for the next (older) page. One could make an argument either way, which is why good design should label one arrow "older articles" or some such.

Couldn't agree more. The tumblr theme used is quite buggy and shows strange glitches. Will work on that soon!

Thanks for your feedback! It turns out the Tumblr theme is quite buggy and I will replace it soon. On another note, not all details posted are 100% good, some are purely food for thought.

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