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Comment by thanksforfish | Hacker News Reader

This is a good reminder that if you want good design, don't just rip off another site, implement it, and ship. Build a prototype, user test it, and when they say this sucks, try something else.

I'd love to see some more tech companies go the Berkshire Hathaway route: https://berkshirehathaway.com/ Metrics for load time, readability, usability, are great. :)

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Well... strangely enough, this kind of no frills design is open only to some people/businesses. You need at least one of the following:

A) to not care how other's will perceive your website

B) enough people know who you are so well that it doesn't matter how they perceive your website

If you don't fall into either A or B, I'm sorry but you will need at least a "professional looking" website. Within that of course I agree there's still ample room for good UX and fast load times

You might like that website, but do you really think most consumers would have faith in your product if the landing page looked anything like that? People use external markers like that all the time--the bathroom at this diner is nice == the kitchen must be clean.

My suggestion is to user test your site. I agree most consumers would not like such sites (and that you'd learn that in user tests). I also believe consumers hate scroll jacking, janky experiences (anecdata elsewhere in the thread). My personal taste is just one data point.

> My suggestion is to user test your site. I agree most consumers would not like such sites (and that you'd learn that in user tests).

Are you really suggesting that Google doesn’t do user tests? Google likely has a larger headcount on UX than most tech companies have employees.

Zero user testing? No, I'm not suggesting that.

My reply is to the BH thread.

Wow that BH site. Could be a remnant from the Geocities/Angelfire days and I wouldn't say otherwise.

This is probably a case of survivor bias. As in, the ones who have tried it have not survived.

Designs like this persist for a simple reason - it’s that people who like spending a lot of money on high end tech products like them.

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