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Comment by jwingy | Hacker News Reader

Unrelated comment, but the sidebar on that page sort of looks like a premature optimization...what's the purpose of making it hard to see? I didn't notice it was there until I accidentally moused over it. Can anyone explain the efficacy of that in design terms?

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The point is that you're not supposed to see it until you are done with the article, and start mousing around. Just the fact that you couldn't see it means that it did its job.

Now whether that's a good idea is another debate - it's a design decision to "hide" the sidebar.

But do this - compare the page with and without the sidebar - you'll notice that you focus on the actual article much better without the visual clutter of the sidebar in the way.

I read this article then came back to read the comments. I hadn't even noticed there was a sidebar. So yes, I'd agree with you, I focused much better on the actual article with a hidden sidebar.

The trouble is that once you know the sidebar is there, it is much more annoying and intrusive than it would be if it was standardly visible.

i've never seen that before, but it's an interesting concept. Maybe the idea is to not distract the reader from reading the primary content, but offering an easy way to get more data on the writer should the reader choose.

It worked great for me, I didn't even notice the sidebar and read the article beginning to end happily. It's hard to say if it would work for everyone w/o some testing of course.

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