What is Digg?75 Comments
- kohlmannj, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18Ad-hoc list of hunches:
1. Nobody uses overdesigned websites. Oh, wait.
2. Content is more important than design?
3. Too busy making money to hire a designer?
The Steve Jobs quote in the article makes a pretty good point in my opinion – pretty things [people?] don't always [know how to] work. - deut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Hmmm, yes - exactly.
It's like taking a really nice design idea and then f'ing it up with poor layout choices.
For example, I noticed a site recently, that despite the hyped fanfare, actually took a nice UI design and made it worse by cluttering the page up with unnecessary bells-n-whistles and made the content so narrow (with ads either side) that the user had to wear sunglasses to avoid the dazzle from all the whitespace in the left/right margins.
Sounds familiar ? - pype, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15*cough* DIGG v3 *cough*
- Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9A large animated background GIF would do well for Digg. It needs to blast ***** indie bands from my speakers too.
- toekneebullard, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10How many times are people going to write the same article? Yes, myspace is ugly, but it's still popular, because people can look past aesthetic when someone is useful to them.
- DeathonWheels, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7While myspace is ugly the pages people make for their myspace profile are even uglier. And autoplaying music is annoying.
- illicium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Some are. :)
- trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"made the content so narrow (with ads either side) that the user had to wear sunglasses to avoid the dazzle from all the whitespace in the left/right margins."
I was wondering what all that whitespace was for. - cwl157, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4dude, myspace user pages are the worst designs. I hate going to a myspace page that has purple and pink flashing hearts in the background and you can't read anything unless you highlight it and stupid music playing. Face it, people are idiots (or at least 14 year old girls)
- ayeroxor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6It clearly means that regardless of you Shockwave Picassos with your annoying flashscreens and continually moving garbage, people prefer simple over complex.
It seems very obvious to me, but apparently this is really hard for some animators to comprehend. Just because you CAN use every visual gimmick doesn't mean you SHOULD. - qcourtney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4craigslist is an awesome site that has to be the ugliest site of those mentioned! and I like the google homepage..they do cute things to their logo!
- MCHampster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3*cough* Cough *cough*
- Ashiro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The problems MySpace have aren't just visual. It has numerous serious bugs and outages. You can tell it was knocked together rather than properly designed and built with a clear end in mind. It needs to be completely refactored or quietly step down and let TagWorld take over. They have a much better quality site but unfortunately its not as popular and its MySpace's size that wins out all the time.
- searchengine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Myspace does have an ugly design (visually) and many popular sites have that same problem. Couple weeks ago during the Superman Returns campaign, myspace actually had a design that was some what visually appealing or at least more then the current design.
http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/marketing-20-warner-brothers-entices-myspacers.html - GopherGod, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6How about this problem?
Myspace is the most impossible website to search. I can only find my friends by direct links from them or through other friends profiles if I have not yet added them.
Facebook could easily capitalize on myspaces failures... but they do not. They have not added a blog feature, a similar music/band homepage feature/, or videos. And they say FACEBOOK is worth 2 BILLION! - Zhay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Except Myspace doesn't even have good content. It doesn't work half of the time, and it's slow. Giving people who can't design the ability to make a web page is a BAD idea.
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I never really cared much either away about the base MySpace design. What I do care about though is how it lets the inmates run the asylum, giving everybody a lisencse to be a web developer. Text that's hard to read over it's background, annoying music/videos, and the broken CSS that crashes my browser. WTF?
- StickWST, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Whats a bigger annoyance to me, is the actual profiles, they all scream "the computer is magic interweb box".
- TimmyGUNZ, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Exactly. Websites are all about content, content, content.
- atroxodisse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3myspace was by no means easy to put together. It is a very complex beast of script and database interaction. How many content management systems have you designed?
- Romero3160, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2its easier and visually pleasing to the eye. Any website with a light theme or more white on the page will get attention. Digg is more appealing then /.
craigslist and wiki are a straight to business color theme. They are gray easy to navigate and simple
Google is just plain simple.
Apple is appealing because its simple and easy to navigate. I dont mind going through all the boring parts of the apple website just because their team has put a lot of time to make it welcoming - Kickboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The fact that MySpace is so ugly is one (of many) reasons why I hate it. Everytime I look at the site I feel like throwing up. Not only is the design bad, it's slow and ad-packed. In addition loading times are horrible. MySpace is riddled with technical problems, with certain features constantly going offline. The reason for this is probably due to the fact that it's supporting millions of users on a windows platform (+it's using ColdFusion... eww). If they fix these points... I'd probably use it.
- CaptShmo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah, I'm a designer / developer also. We're not as common as straight up coders or artists, but we do exist.
- gridrunner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Somewhat ironic that Digg seems to be rather broken as well. I accidentally replied with the wrong link there (hence the out of context comment). When I went to edit my comment there was an error and my 3 minutes editing time never materialised...
Sort it out Digg! - gridrunner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"[sites such as MySpace] look as if they were created by an engineer".
– But it doesn't work properly OR look good! And no amount of page hacking will fix the site's IA.
For example: I receive a MySpace mail from my brother. I click the link. I'm told I have to log in to see that page (fair enough). I log in. It doesn't take me where I originally clicked. So I have to go back to the email and click again! Just the tip of the iceberg...
It's beyond me why they don't get some proper web developers and designers to fix it. They could save a fortune in page-weight bandwidth to start with! - forumreader, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So true. Please, just give me something that works!
- Nextrix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'd have to disagree with you on that one. To be competive in the web market some developers like myself have to keep a front knowledge and skills in both sections of website devlelopment to get anywhere in this business. Cheaper than hiring a design/coder we you can do both. :P
- Ribbott, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, I remember they did the same thing for X-3
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The thing with myspace is that it's pretty open so you can pretty much customize your page to look like whatever you want. You can make it classy, or you can pretty easily make it super trashy and poorly designed. I think the problem is a lot of people are attracted to trash..Like Kevin Federline on a larger scale.
- theadvinci, on 07/18/2008, -0/+1Being a web designer I have noticed that some clients like ugly design. I mean there is a huge number of people who have absolutely no taste at all... I guess MySpace found all those people and got them to sign up. That's why it's so popular.
- Kericr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2MySpace pages use nested tables. SIX nested tables. Anybody ever try doing a CSS write of their own MySpace? table table table table table table tr td {*****:blowitoutyourass;}
- skartel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, it is great in its simplicity but its design is still *****
I remember seeing someones created CSS for craigslist which maintained its ease of use and simplicity but also made it visually appealing.
Ease of use and Visual appeal are not mutually exclusive. - Fipxop, on 04/27/2009, -0/+1Simple is fine. It's ugly that's the problem.
- briangig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah its too bad myspace's terrible design is keeping it from being popular...
who cares? why does a website have to be flashy and ajaxy to be useful? I wasnt too long ago it was just text...and more text. It's the content people want, not how it looks. ex: google, craigslist, myspace, digg (i know there is alot that goes into making the page, but it is a very simple design), drudgereport, youtube...the list goes on.
simple designs dont keep people from coming back, if the product is good enough. - atroxodisse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This argument is like beating a dead horse. Ugly is not the new beautiful. Myspace isn't popular because it's ugly. Myspace is popular because it works. If myspace was prettier I'm sure it would have no less people interested in it. Probably more. Me for one. I can't stand the look of it, and I won't touch it with a ten foot pole. Of course I'm a web designer so I have a pretty good idea of what looks good and what doesn't.
- northjersey78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gotta install the gresemonkey script to disable all of that ***** - I use it and all I get are everyone's profile reverted back to the original, normal, template design - all muisc disabled.
- jimmyjimbo13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I absolutely agree with this. I am very interested in design and I see a huge amount of simply beautiful blogs and websites that are amazingly designed and artful. But they aren't very well known and popular. But then I see sites like MySpace that people call "ugly", "badly designed", and a "broken piece of code". I think the reason that sites like these are so popular is that they are look simple to a user, and the "uglyness" actually does good, making it so a user isn't intimidated by a design that is full of art and themes. When professional designers that do make sites full of bells and whistles go to other designers' webpages, they look past the intimidating art and think that their fellow designers' work is much better than the popular sites like MySpace and Google.
When I look at MySpace and Google, I don't see an artful intimidating front. Quite the opposite in fact. But what I also see is an interface that invites the user, making the user feel at home and comfortable with looking around. Art is for advertising campaigns designed to make the target audience think the item being advertised is cool and trendy. Feature-filled "tool" sites should not have a bunch of art lying around, they should take into consideration what will make the user feel comfortable.
I also feel that future Digg redesigns need to take a lot of this into consideration, because I feel the flashy art on Digg v3 might be intimidating to some users. The Yahoo site redesign also doesn't seem very usable as a tool. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i disagree !
- jimmyjimbo13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The technical problems definitely do need to be fixed. But I think that the look and feel of the site is perfect for the masses to just take up and go along with.
- ogletree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I deal with companies all the time about web design. I always try to talk them out of some really lame site design that they already have. I always get "well I asked everybody and they said it looks cool". If you know many of the people on myspace that have ugly pages they will tell you the same thing. You will even see comments on these pages saying cool site. Sometimes those ugly things are what works. What I always say is there is a big difference between you asking somebody to look at your site and give you his or her opinion and asking somebody to go to the Internet and find something, buy something, or accomplish some task. People look at sites very differently when they are on a mission than when they are asked if the site is pretty.
- fifty50, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1*raises hand* me too. It's nice cause you can theoretically do all the work yourself, but it's a pain in the ass sometimes when you have to spread yourself so thin.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I disagree. Sites like myspace are easy to look at, navigate and can appeal to the masses. It's not flashy, but it works well.
- ejm508, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lumping MySpace and Google into the same category is stupid as helll....
Whereas Google is minimalistic, MySpace's problem is that there's *too damn much* stuff on the pages - bcnw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This argument is like saying that Windows is a well designed OS because it's got the biggest market share, and it got to the top the fastest. MySpace built on the social network concept just like MS built on fledgling OSes, expanding it to include more options, and MySpace did it in such a way that they've gotten maximum press (everytime you hear a news story about predators on MySpace, remember that (almost) any press is good press, and a major news outlet owns them). But this popular=well designed argument is a total tautology.
- digital11, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The fact that it uses Cold Fusion being among the major ones...
Please tell me it doesn't actually still use CF though and the .cfm links are just rewritten behind the scenes. - APWQ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was talking about the sites ON myspace. As in myspace makes it easy for people to make bad sites.
- darkmyst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Call me lazy but I don't want to read everyone else's comments so mod me into oblivion if you've seen all my comments already.. It's said Myspace might be popular because of it was the "first to execute". I agree, as I know many do, with that theory. Furthermore, it seems to me it's popularity is self propagating thanks to it's nature as a social gathering website. Think about it -- all your friends are at Myspace, but you've found a new social gathering site that is leaps and bounds better designed and implemented in every imaginable way. You say "HEY GUYS, LET'S ALL GO THERE INSTEAD!". Will they move? Probably not. Why? Because you're just one person at this new site. The rest of their friends are still at Myspace. Yes, you might motivate a few to move over but then they're stuck in the same empty boat you are. It's so much easier to stay where you are than move someplace better. A social gathering website like myspace BECOMES popular because it's first to execute -- it STAYS popular because you're hooked in. Moving to the competition is pointless if your friends don't move too.. and their friends... and their friends' friends....
Beyond that, even if a new competitor comes along and has none of the flaws that Myspace does, it will also invariably become ugly. Why? If it allows users to visually customize their page like Myspace does (sorta -- it's not a feature, it's a gaping hole in a totally unrelated feature) then the users of that site will create ugly profiles there too.
What I hate most about myspace is the inserted videos and music it starts to play automatically. - biffsputnik, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Developers, developers, developers!!!!
- jakespills, on 05/21/2008, -0/+0MySpace isn't a problem. People with bad taste are the problem. This custom myspace design company creates awesome myspace flash layouts. If you want your myspace layouts to look like professional websites you need to hire a professional myspace design company. http://www.myspace.com/designformyspace
http://www.pearsestreet.com/myspace-flash-layouts. ... -
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