Hacker News Reader

Comment by nobleach | Hacker News Reader

Sure. Now let's say you're shopping for a brand new rug for your living room. Are you going to buy it from a site the looks like HackerNews? If so, I'd venture to say you're in the minority. A used rug from Craigslist, perhaps, but a brand new rug costing hundreds, you're going to want a site that looks VERY professional.

View on HN

So you’re saying “professional == follows modern design fads” as a proxy for how legitimate a site is. And maybe you’re right that is a somewhat useful (if unreliable) proxy for legitimateness, but it’s not an argument that it’s good design.

For a site that sells rugs, good design is design that accommodates all users and sells as many rugs as possible.

So an accessible site that follows modern design fads is probably the best thing to have (if that sells rugs).

If one of the goals of design is to serve as a signal for how trustworthy your business is, then it is absolutely an argument that it’s good design.

Actually I've bought rugs and computers from websites not much more complex than HN. Both sets of transactions went smoothly and quickly with no issues. I wish I could say the same for some very flashy websites I've used. On some I can't even get a delivery estimate until I've submitted credit card etc.

Amazon is a design garbage bin, but it doesn't seem to be reducing their sales.

I would definetly pick the store with the hacker newsish website!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com