Ask HN: How would you re-design Hacker News?

I want to preface this with the fact I've been on this site for over 15 years and I do not want to see a "redesign", just some tweaks.

1. The grey self post text is not accessible and hard to read. It needs to be darker. Same is true of user names, etc.

2. HN could improve the UI for mobile users by making clickable elements slightly larger and adding some extra spacing to prevent accidental miss-clicks.

3. Add an inline confirmation step screen when flagging a post – I accidentally flag posts all the time.

4. Change "favourite" to "book mark". Add it to the list view. Add a link to "book marks" in the top bar so they can easily accessed. Sometimes I see something that looks interesting but I don't have time to read. I don't want to click through to the comments just to "favourite" it, then I need to remember to go to my profile and click on "favourites" later. I just want to quickly book mark posts and be able to easily access them later.

Put the "more" link to the right corner, so it’s easier to reach one handed from a smart phone. That’s the one and only thing I’d change

At 7KB, the favicon often makes up over 10% of total page size. At 256x256px and having only two colours, I think there's plenty of room to slim it down.

I'm also curious why HTTP/1.1 is used as it's not 1999 any more.

Fairly satisfied with HN as is. The minimal medium makes for more signal, less noise. not no noise, that's impossible. (there is no spoon)

Can list lots of things that I think would be bad. Animated GIF user avatar images. inline images. Cryptocurrency schemes and "realtime chat" systems.

ooo. almost forgot: dedicated proprietary client. screw this "open web" stuff, lets add some encryption to nntp and charge $15/mo for a reskinned newsreader app to access it with! We can compile it to webasm and run it in electron on phones!

This website is unreasonably good. I would only make a few minor fixes:

- Bigger clickable elements on mobile.

- Support for bullet lists

- Slightly easier navigation

- Optional reply notifications

HN is nearly perfect as is IMO -- any changes would ruin a lot of what makes it special.

That said, the one change I would probably make is changing the click targets to be slightly larger on the upvote/downvote/collapse on comments. Would be a nice improvement for mobile users.

Add an option to show only top level comments/collapse threads by default.

Auto dupe detection with linking historical discussion (mild QoL). Aggregate dupes posted in a short timeframe (needs manual intervention I fear).

Add an at least rudimentary tagging and tag filter/browser system.

The search could use some work (but I guess you can do site:news.ycombinator.com searches with other engines).

Otherwise pretty neat as is. The ephemeral nature of threads on recurring topics - such as this one - I find somewhat tragic but such is the nature of aggregators.

Never add embedded media or "modern web" shenanigans!

I’d remove flagging or hiding on mobile unless you click on the post because it’s easy to accidentally do it.

I would like to see a hackernews for creatives, preferably done by completely different people. Just to clarify: Computer programmers can be creatives too, like writers, painters - anyone producing output.

I would keep the simplistic text based appeoach.

hn looks fine; not every site has to be embellished with modern design.

If you want some fresh looks, check Modern for Hacker News extension - https://www.modernhn.com/

Automatically link Dupes into a single post and set of comments.

And add subsections or maybe a set of tags -nothing like all of Reddit but a handful something like Tech/Buisness/science/art as with ask and show.

In terms of aesthetics and usability, HN is already pretty good, but I might tweak the colors for contrast, maybe increase the default font-size a bit, and play around with the padding to give it a slightly better and more accessible look.

In terms of functionality, I'd like to see a few items done for the sake of transparency and/or better content.

* I'd like to see some page of HN dedicated to showing posts and that were deleted/blocked for spamming, and one for blocked/shadow-banned domains. In 99% of cases, the moderation seems fine, but there's a weird cult of sycophantic behavior on this site that refuses to believe in even the potential for mistakes being made or for bias to occur. I just want some transparency on what is blocked so it's easier to see if any patterns exist.

* Vouching flagged posts should work differently. If you vouch for somebody in real life and they do something bad, your reputation suffers. Right now you can vouch for spam or bad posts with no penalty to you just by clicking a vouch button where you can't see who vouched for it. Users should put their money where their mouth is. A vouching should require a public comment by that user detailing why they vouch for it. If somebody vouches for viagra spam, everybody should see that.

* It should be possible to respond to blocked and flagged posts/ for some limited time period after. In the 1% of cases that a moderator makes a mistake, or a good conversation is stymied, or something else happens, you should still be able to respond to give your side of the story or just post an email address to where followup discussions can occur. Abusive accounts should still be suspended, but this gives a better possibility to rectify moderation errors.

* Quasi-nonymous posting should be possible. Obviously HN would still know who you are if there was an anonymous post button so users could still be blocked for grossly bad behavior, but it might open up the potential for more honest posts about certain topics if it didn't link to your name.

* I don't want HN to turn into a pure image board, but sometimes referring to a diagram in a science or programming discussion can be useful. Is there a solution that enhances the quality of HN possible? I'd say yes.

* It might be a good idea to list what users flag a post. If somebody is perenially being a busy-body and trying to stymie speech on a particular comment or has a hate-boner against certain things, it should be possible to see that in some way. If you're only flagging things that should be blocked like viagra spam, there's nothing to be concerned about.

It’s fine as it is.

I would just make the upvote / downvote arrows a bit larger on mobile.

The design is nicely minimal, but I would replace the nested table layout with nested lists (which is what the comment section is).

Also: add some way to highlight new messages since you last looked at a discussion.

It works well. I would not redesign something that works well.

A little scrolling ticker on the top bar showing posts on the front page. Sadly marquee was discontinued, so I doubt this could be done.

1. Add a way to block users.

2. Customizable themes.

3. Some way to indicate responsess to your comments/threads.

the links are tiny targets for fat fingers on mobile screens.

there can be better spacing between links both on topnav bar and also the links next to each post on a thread.

same with links in user profile page.

spacing.

just one small change, clicking a link on a title should open a new tab instead of opening it in the same tab

It should have notifications for replies.

Browse/collapse with arrow keys

Suggestion: black bars should be clickable to bring to a relevant post.

from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37197243

or more minimally have a tooltip that indicates the name of the person

Communication over a distance never works, there is no sympathy in it, because everyone is reduced to a persona, and everyone feels equal to the other which is terrible. Redesigning things won't change that.