What I find weird is how many professional web developers contact me to ask what theme I’m using on my blog, a straight HTML website with 42 lines of inline CSS. I even was asked once with JS library I was using. (there is no JS, it’s a blog !)
None of those sending me those emails bothered to even look at the code. None even thought it was possible that this was NOT a "theme" somewhere on the web.
Well the parent expresses surprise at how many such emails they receive. I don't think the disrespect an entire class of people, they just say "it's not a couple naive emails, it's a lot more than I would expect".
I always find it frustrating to read HN comments expressing hatred towards mobile and whitespace-rich designs.
These designs exist based on user research, as most people find them pleasant and intuitive. I don't understand what's wrong with these design patterns.
I don't doubt in the slightest that fancy mobile-y design styles look nice and are often intuitive at T=0, but we've lost a lot of throughput and information density by going for them as an industry.
It's the same as trying to write code on a phone, but backwards
All too often being 'mobile first' means being desktop last. It feels like a betrayal when UX becomes a zero sum tradeoff between new users and the enthusiast users who built the platform and community to be what it is. User research metrics will favor the new users every time because inexperienced users tend to be the majority. Eventually, the enthusiast users leave, causing many to wonder why the original culture and appeal of a website disappeared.
