the US government's brilliantly boring websites | Hacker News Reader

the US government's brilliantly boring websites

technologyreview.com

56 pointsrbanffy25 comments

Open articleView on HN

https://designsystem.digital.gov/

https://github.com/uswds/uswds

5 popups on the website, 4 of them at the same time covering each other, is that a joke?

I closed the tab after 1 second.

Yes, it's a pity that technologyreview.com is not also "brilliantly boring".

Two cookie banners on top of each other. Crazy.

My first thought too. Immediate tab close.

i had a double take - initially skimmed over the page then went to HN comments- then re-opened it (even in a new FF container); saw no popups (i only had the cookie policy hover-footer) , and adnauseam is at (0).. im on desktop FF with strict mode and not even my most agressive blocking stuff - curious what youre all running where the site gave you those anoyances (not that im trying defende them)

A significant fraction of HN readers absolutely refuse to use any kind of ad-blockers.

If that’s true then it’s so bizarre. Is there a reason why?

It's true: in addition to comments like the above where they complain about pop-up ads that no one else sees (because everyone else is using an ad-blocker), in discussions about ad-blockers, or when someone flat-out asks them why they don't just use an ad-blocker, they'll say they believe blocking ads is immoral etc. and try to shame people for blocking ads.

My guess is they work for the adtech companies.

Uh, interesting. Also, so weird. Thanks for the insight, appreciated.

Here's an exchange from 12 days ago with one of these people:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=shiroiushi&next=4081...

That was quite the read. It’s genuinely perplexing to see people defend the currently atrocious state of the ad world by comparing it to theft. So weird.

I'm running Iceraven on Android with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and I got hit by a bunch of pop-ups. When I left and went back, I didn't get any. Maybe you've been to the domain before?

according to my browser history once in june 2023 and once in june 19 2024; but using FF with containerized tabs - if thier ad model is that scarse then id assume they certainly dont depend on ads for their income

My iPad Mini is my only device that isn’t armed to the teeth with ad blockers, mostly because of iOS restrictions. As makers, it’s good to be reminded of the average Joe’s web experience.

Disable JavaScript.

FWIW, the UK gov does this very well too.

A good clean stack, a good set of accessibility guidelines that are enforced, leading to boring (in a very good way), clean websites that just delivery their function / information.

I wish more commercial websites prioritised function over form.

One of the only good things about the UK. I wonder how they pulled it off without bureaucracy and politics swamping them. I’d like to read about it in a blog or something.

Probably during a Labour government. Tories would never invest on such a thing, or would find a huge consultancy to allegedly do the job for an eye-watering amount.

Why did they not link to any examples of what they're talking about?

https://archive.ph/a4srA

I don't know whether or not it follows these standards but I really, really appreciate the design of ecfr.gov

Wish they provided a CDN and not need to use npm+gulp+sass to get started.

> We were interested in trying to establish an open-source solution space for a typeface

Don't overdo it.

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