Comment by overshard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by overshard | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I honestly miss people building random stuff on the internet to showcase unique information on things like Geocities. They were almost always "ugly" but also always visually entertaining.

I remember skimming through hundreds of car Geocities sites by enthusiasts who had no clue how to build a website but wanted to show off their rides. It was always a rollercoaster of poor UX and bad quality images but something was also fun about finding the random image that was a link to some internal page that had more random links on it to more and more and more.

Now everyone just posts info on curated pre-designed platforms and blogs like Facebook or Blogger which takes out half of the appeal for me, I instantly don't care about anything posted on Facebook and don't have a Facebook account. There is some good content on Blogger and the likes but there's nothing fun about most of the posts.

I clearly have been visiting the wrong sites and probably could dig up similar content to what I miss. It could also just be me being old and grumpy.

Well it's dangerous to give people the tools to design themselves - it's a rare skill and very difficult to blend it all together into a cohesive community! I think many startups of the 2010s saw Myspace design as a disaster.

We're hoping that by having some default color palettes and some common patterns and fonts - as well as limits to paddings, margins and border sizes - that it helps people stay in the ballpark of what a Multiverse post looks like. (Kind of like how you can spot something made with LEGOs from a distance.)

But whatever - creating ugly things should be part of the world. Looking forward to the future of 'ugly', 'bad', 'shoddy' design on the Internet. <3

> Well it's dangerous to give people the tools to design themselves

Having built a site builder before, I think you are on the right track. I think you're right to limit the design scope people have access to in order to manage Multiverses' brand image, I wouldn't recommend otherwise. What you've got is much more platform than blog/site builder, the network effect is going to rely on people wanting a "Multiverse" site and that's going to be a particular aesthetic.

In general though, there is a saying in music when someone makes a mistake: "It's only music, nobody died". I think the same could be applied to the web in general, and personal sites especially. Things got reaaaally boring after the "Flat design" trend of the 2010s powerwashed the web of anything remotely interesting, and as much as it brought in good UX and design patterns it also stripped out a lot of character. It'll be nice to see people try on their design pants again.

Wow - this is a very encouraging post. Thank you! If you happen to still be reading - what was the site builder you worked on? Have you written anywhere about your experience on that project?

On the other hand, a ton of us got our start in web design or development due to the freedom of sites like Myspace and Geocities.

yeah im one of the kid that is eternally grateful to sites like myspace and geocities

In the context of hobby websites, the choice of the word "dangerous" is pretty extreme.

"Disaster" is also hyperbole.

That's fair enough, I'm in agreement. I think what I should have communicated (as dentemple did) is that the benefits outweigh the consequences.

Absolutely agree with you as well. I do think it’s “dangerous” - or perhaps it’s better to just call it a “tradeoff” - because you give people greater power over the design of the site. But obviously a tradeoff we’re all willing to make.

This comes down to the fact that learning design, UI, and UX is far harder than learning to code. And that nobody who uses a tool cares how good or bad the code is if it works okay.

Whenever I have looked into learning the design side, I've found it far more difficult to find a good set of resources to go by.

I probably didn't look hard enough

Whenever I see people on here longing for the web of old (surprisingly often) I point them to a great little game called HypnoSpace Outlaw. You play a web enforcer in an alternate reality 90's internet simulator.

It's available on Xbox Game Pass, and here's the Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/844590/Hypnospace_Outlaw/

appreciate what you've expressed @overshard, it resonates

i dont think pre-designed sites and blogs are bad, but I think if/when they are the only (easy/popular) options out there, that's when it feels a little unfortunate

fun and casual is something that we strive for -- a lot of deep and rich things come out of playing and being playful. we hope that we can help contribute a small step toward that

It gave more people a way to share, with a lower barrier of entry. It lets them focus on the message and not its envelope.

>It could also just be me being old and grumpy.

I don't think it's that, I think you're describing the electronic version of an old neighborhood with character versus a modern suburban planned community. Some people genuinely prefer the latter, but there's not much of a choice both online and in the real world these days, so we're all stuck with it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com