A list of lightweight websites without bloat | Hacker News Reader

A list of lightweight websites without bloat

github.com

123 pointsushakov35 comments

Sometimes, a little CSS and JS go a long way to help the users achieve their goals. Spartan websites can be hard to read.

My own website uses more and more JavaScript, but it supports the main content. For example, a glossary bubble for German words, a table of content that highlights the current section, and calculators give you quicker answers.

A few of the websites listed there might be lightweight, but many seem to offer a poor user experience, even for just text on a page.

In my opinion, the best example of a lightweight website is the NHS. Yes, the page is lightweight, but the effort extends to the design and even the text on the page.

A little CSS and JS isn't the problem - a lot of it, or JS that performs excessive calculations is!

Bloat is one thing, and good content design another.

The NHS, and gov.uk, are some of the largest employers of UX/content designers in the UK, and recently it shows. A lot of it is considered the gold standard for content design; extremely clear, well presented information, where the most commonly relevant information is easily identified and straightforward.

Less bloat is, I guess, a side effect of good content design, rather than less bloat being the reason they're good sites.

Of course, it's easier to do good content design when there isn't any commercialism involved. As soon as you have to introduce ads, sponsors, paid-for content and unnecessary padding/pages/waffle in the name of views and clicks, you can say goodbye to good content design and low bloat.

> you can say goodbye to good content design and low bloat

I generally agree, but I make a living from bucking that trend. The few websites that don't become affiliate mouthpieces quickly become household names in their niche.

I'd be curious to see examples!

Yes, a site can be too spare but that's far less prevalent among sites than behemoths that load so slowly. Question is can a site be attractive and yet be "lightweight" in terms of performance and resource usage?

It's educational to use a tool like Lighthouse and point it at supposed "good" or "bad" sites. I've done this a number of times. Amazing (well, maybe not) how poorly most sites score.

To be sure some of the lightweight sites performed pretty well, but in general sites are a long way from optimal. I know how much effort it takes to make sites that are interesting and performant. I've worked hard on my own sites to reach that high level so I know it can be done. As so often is the case it's more a matter of what one decides to leave out rather than including just one more cool thing.

It can be done, and it's not even that hard. It's just text on a page! Add a bit of static caching and Bob's your uncle. You have to go out of your way to turn that into a 2 MB monstrosity, but somehow many websites manage it.