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New Y Combinator Website

432 points| kevin | 11 years ago |blog.ycombinator.com | reply

133 comments

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[+] minimaxir|11 years ago|reply
If you've ever wondered what Hacker News looks like to a moderator, now's your chance.

http://www.ycombinator.com/images/home/HackerNews.png

[+] dang|11 years ago|reply
Not to a moderator; to a YC partner. Moderators' Hacker News looks different, and you're going to have to wait till one of us leaks another screenshot to see it.

I feel like since it was we who slipped up, fair game rules say we owe you guys an explanation of what those bells and whistles do (warning: you may find it disappointingly mundane), so I'll come back and post some more in this thread later. By coincidence, however, I was out all day, so had better catch up with anything important first.

Edit: Ok, I think I've answered all the questions about details. But let me add the most important point here.

The interface that you see in that screenshot is not actually used by anyone [1]. Those links are there for legacy reasons. Their principal role at present is to lure YC partners into accidentally fat-fingering things. (Don't worry; that doesn't happen often, and we see it in the logs and correct it.) They don't exist in the YC-partner version of Kevin's new HN markup, so they won't be around much longer.

1. The only exception I can think of is that Trevor occasionally helps out with moderation.

[+] nostromo|11 years ago|reply
Are all YC founders' usernames orange?

Wouldn't that have the same effect as a voting ring?

[+] wgx|11 years ago|reply
Kill | blast | nuke
[+] simias|11 years ago|reply
I wonder what the percentage means. upvote/flag ratio?
[+] babuskov|11 years ago|reply
I wonder what "hours(51)" means?
[+] Alupis|11 years ago|reply
(EDIT) - Whoops! was looking at the old site still!

Nice improvement! Much better than the old site! ;-)

[+] Killah911|11 years ago|reply
What does the % at the end signify?

EDIT: % after 'delete' on every submission

[+] ddorian43|11 years ago|reply
no downvote superpowers ?
[+] zmitri|11 years ago|reply
Do I get to be as brutal as Kevin giving design feedback on the new site? :)

The JS affix doesn't trigger off at the bottom so the sticky nav stays fixed http://i.imgur.com/YAqGVoL.png

Mixpanel's logo is forced display:none; on the homepage so it offsets the grid http://i.imgur.com/SV2dLq8.png

Overall this redesign is absolutely fantastic.

PS. Did the valuation required to get on the homepage go up a bit?

[+] jychang|11 years ago|reply
Also, Dropbox's image is using the old logo. Not sure if that was intentional or not.
[+] zmitri|11 years ago|reply
I just realized the Mixpanel issue might just be because I use AdBlock...
[+] lacus|11 years ago|reply
Am I really the only one who noticed that there are now women in some of the photos, as well as someone who is non-white/Asian? The design changes are great, too, but this seems a little more significant in terms of messaging. YC has been making more of an effort recently but it was always difficult for me to get past the fact that, according to their own photos, JL is the only woman there, or the only one worth showing in a photo. (This is coming from someone who was wanting to be able to like YC whole-heartedly, not someone looking for controversy.)

I do actually think it's something that gets noticed, just maybe not always on a conscious level, so this is a great and welcomed (and more welcoming) change. Well done, y'all.

[+] talles|11 years ago|reply
"If what you see makes you worried for Hacker News, I want you to know that I have very different design goals for HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7960105)"
[+] read|11 years ago|reply
I am worried for Hacker News.

  One of my mottoes is that if you want to get unusual
  results, work fast and work cheap, because there's more
  of a chance that you'll get somewhere that nobody else
  did.

  Nearly always, the effect of spending a lot of money is
  to make things more normal.

  - Brian Eno
[+] sama|11 years ago|reply
kevin is basically just unbelievably good at everything.
[+] larrys|11 years ago|reply
The "partners" page doesn't mention the founders of YC or differentiate them from the other partners. Obviously there was a reason for this. Can you elaborate?

http://www.ycombinator.com/partners/

[+] zt|11 years ago|reply
Yes! Kevin is amazing. He gave me a sneak peak of the design last week, but it's really amazing. I love all the wonderfully thought out but small details, like how good the FAQ page is.
[+] webwright|11 years ago|reply
Love it! So much awesome design thinking packed into this.

This feels odd: http://monosnap.com/image/koDS9m3j3pz43AQVb2nHpuWwp4CGaq

Seems odd to say "application period is over! Here's an APPLY button!"

Also, S14 seems like an abbreviation that wouldn't be meaningful to non-YC-faithful. Curse of knowledge?

Suggest something like: "Applications open for Winter '15 soon. <link>Get notified</link>" (allowing people to get an email ping when it opens up?) You could have a link to the (non-useful but still educational) "apply" link in the FAQ? Or better yet, if they choose to get notified, say "great, we'll let you know. In the meantime, check out <link>last session's application</link>."

[+] kevin|11 years ago|reply
Right now, it doesn't make sense. You're right. Hover over the S14 text and you should get a tooltip.
[+] jeswin|11 years ago|reply
Minor nitpick. I didn't like the alignment of the YC logos on the top and bottom. They look a little misaligned. Maybe something like this is better ?: http://i.imgur.com/J1mzwJk.png (Removed all content except top and bottom)
[+] kevin|11 years ago|reply
The site is designed on a 9 column grid. The YC logo gets its own column. I also use that column for side notes on the left side.
[+] colinramsay|11 years ago|reply
Looks like the images only get loaded as you scroll down, which is a good feature that more sites should do. Seems like there's a fair amount of JavaScript being loaded here, I wonder what non-obvious stuff is happening?
[+] mercer|11 years ago|reply
Yeah, I've started using the 'load on demand' approach by default, unless the images are important. It can drastically improve load speed in a very simple way.
[+] dm2|11 years ago|reply
Where can I view a list of all of the past and current startups, their funding, their performance, their current status/worth, current employees, and links to their website in a nice sortable table?

Also, what would it take to get a page of old articles that I didn't view that might be interesting to me based on my previous article upvotes? That would be valuable.

The admin screenshot had several articles from a few months ago that I never saw and the only way for me to see them would be to manually search.

[+] aikah|11 years ago|reply
Nice, in my opinion,Sans is better for Titles,and a serif font is better for the body of an article.

Also either push the header to the left,or align the left column with the top of the header,because right now the layout looks unbalanced.

EDIT :

In my opinion the left column is unnecessary.The site could work with 1 column,and the content of the left column could either be push in the header or a footer.

Just my 2 cents ;) Nice Job again,it's responsive !

[+] RussianCow|11 years ago|reply
I personally find serif harder to read as a body font on web pages, so I think their combo is fine. My gripe with the layout is that it's aligned to the left, so with my high-resolution monitor there is a ton of white space on the right side.
[+] thegeomaster|11 years ago|reply
I think sans-serifs are better for small body text because of the limited amount of available pixels, especially ones that are created with screens in mind and are specifically handhinted to facilitate clarity and crispness.

Serifs are generally more appealing to the eye, but with limited resolutions (say, to 150ppi) can be shown in their full glory only in bigger sizes, making them great for titles on websites. My favorites are slab-serifs (Rockwell and Chunk Five work nice) or transitional serifs (I like Playfair Display) for titles, and something like Open Sans or Helvetica Neue for body text. Looks great :)

[+] kevin|11 years ago|reply
Are you seeing Serifs for Titles? Should be all san-serif. If so, can you send me a screenshot and browser you're using?
[+] curiouslurker|11 years ago|reply
Looks good. I was half expecting to see the hipster design that everyone and their cousin seems to be using! I'm glad they chose better!
[+] fdej|11 years ago|reply
I was fully expecting the infinitely annoying background-photo-that-changes-when-you-scroll gimmick. Such a pleasant surprise.
[+] freshyill|11 years ago|reply
Looks great. Meanwhile I'd sell my first born for a few media queries and a max-width over here at Hacker News.
[+] sixQuarks|11 years ago|reply
I love the new site design (on a macbook), but on windows, the font is not as crisp. I love that font on mac though. Which font should developers use if they want crispness in both mac and windows?
[+] marmarlade|11 years ago|reply
Looks great!

HTTPS giving me troubles, e.g. clicking through on footer links from HN: http://imgur.com/59cQ7G3

On an unrelated note (careful, Inception-style sentence coming up, and apologies if this has been mentioned before/isn't helpful), most of the footer links in the footer of the pages linked to in the footer of news.ycombinator.com lead to 404. Id est, click on a link in the footer, then click on a link in the footer of the page you just clicked to, 404 hey presto.

[+] skizm|11 years ago|reply
Solid redesign. Can't wait for a responsive version on hacker news. I use ihackernews.com now but I occasionally have trouble upvoting or commenting due to api rate limits.
[+] r_singh|11 years ago|reply
The new design is good, but thanks for keeping the old one up too.

The old design gave YC an identity in my mind, and differentiated it from the rest of the web.

It conveyed to me that YC didn't have to follow web trends to get people on their website. I visited the website for its superb content.

Rather than making text harder to "digest", the simple display of useful information appealed to me, and was a refresher.

Perhaps, this may not be the preference of many other users.

[+] WadeF|11 years ago|reply
That big "Apply" button screams Wufoo. :-)
[+] chacham15|11 years ago|reply
Am I the only one who sat there and watched the entire slideshow thinking: "I wish there were captions to all these pictures"?
[+] goblin89|11 years ago|reply
The choice of a geometric Futura-like font as primary face for body text always surprises me. Seems like it's just me, though.