Ask YC: Which companies/products have the best UI/UX?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=149008

by jasonlbaptiste • 18 years ago

13 39 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Thoughts? Local miami startup, Scrapblog has an awesome ui.

mixmax3• 18 years ago

I like this one: http://www.asmomarine.com

Very clean and professional.

Disclaimer: a friend of mine did it.

mixmax3• 18 years ago

Did this get modded down because of the design or because a friend of mine did it?

Not that I mind, I'm just curious as to whether there is someone out there that dislikes it and why. I have a suspicion that Americans and Europeans don't quite agree on what is good design.

aristus• 18 years ago

Likely it was because it's not novel, and is fairly pedestrian. People who care about design have seen thousands like it already. For what it is it's ok.

jasonlbaptiste2• 18 years ago

oh muxtape is cool.

nilobject3• 18 years ago

Depends on your definition of best. The sites that tend to be flashy without purpose I don't like.

Some common sites that I tend to use frequently that the UI never seems to get in my way: News.YC, Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter.

To me, simplicity is bliss.

ljlolel• 18 years ago

Github (github.com) is beautiful all around. Git can be complicated, but github made setting up a repo there so easy that I made several just yesterday.

bjclark2• 18 years ago

Actually, I just saw one of the creators demo it at a ruby conference, and he couldn't even figure out how to great a pull request on his own app. So, I'm going to have to say, NOT a great UX there.

laktek2• 18 years ago

I love the interfaces of 37signals (as many of you would do).. Apart from that I still love Flickr.

BTW, the admin interface for Wordpress.org by HappyCog would also mark as a great UI design (http://wordpress.org/development/2008/03/wordpress-25-rc2/).

rksprst• 18 years ago

The wordpress design is great, lots of useful features and easy to use. But the voice of that guy in the screencast sounds like a sex phone operator or something, it was a bit freaky.

laktek2• 18 years ago

LOL! Actually I also felt the same... Anyway its the voice of Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WP.

bmaier• 18 years ago

google definitely, igoogle not quite as much but still good

german2• 18 years ago

That's funny, I prefer igoogle

ashu• 18 years ago

www.apple.com

bjclark2• 18 years ago

Apple is SUCH a good example of a beautiful UI. Compare it to Dell. They are able to put you in touch with information beautifully and their search is probably the best example of live search on the net.

joshwa3• 18 years ago

iminlikewithyou is pretty darn awesome. And not minimalist at all--very rich interaction, and very well done.

joshwa3• 18 years ago

argh, sorry about the double post. the buxfer news.yc comment submit doesn't clear itself when it submits sucessfully.

can someone with delete privs please kill the parent? thanks!

joshwa3• 18 years ago

iminlikewithyou is pretty darn awesome. And not minimalist at all--very rich interaction, and very well done.

khangtoh• 18 years ago

How about http://www.simplebucket.com Clean and easy on the eyes ;)

ph0rque• 18 years ago

jottit's UX is something I'm in awe of.

edw5192• 18 years ago

Google maps

Tichy2• 18 years ago

I must admit I suck at using Google Maps. I don't use it that often, and I still haven't quite figured out how to zoom in to the place I am looking for. I would expect to be able to do it with the mouse wheel, but somehow it never works out quite right. I keep having to use the sliders and occasionally readjusting the focus.

So I can't give Google Maps a very good rating for usability.

edw5192• 18 years ago

I never use the sliders; you're right - they're not very good.

My mouse wheel works great - on several computers. Maybe something wrong with your mouse?

german2• 18 years ago

I'm very proud of our UI, http://prezentit.com/tryit

nilobject3• 18 years ago

At first glance it looks nice, but it doesn't work in Safari :-/

aswanson• 18 years ago

I like it too.

dfranke• 18 years ago

I'm a fan of the Amarok UX.

eibrahim• 18 years ago

To me UX is more important than UI, so I vote for Google Reader

ivank• 18 years ago

Nothing on the web really satisfies me interface-wise. Some Flash apps come close, but they break browser keyboard shortcuts. So, desktop apps: foobar2000, uTorrent, Directory Opus, Thunderbird. Eclipse has a brilliant drag-and-split arrange, though I wish it was Emacs everywhere else. And Dropbox's desktop integration (no UI) is great.

spydez• 18 years ago

So UI is 'user interface', but what is UX?

nilobject3• 18 years ago

User Experience

nextmoveone• 18 years ago

I personally enjoy gmails ui. I like linkedin's as well.

Publictivity looks pretty freaking sweet... can I get access?

jasonlbaptiste2• 18 years ago

youre from south florida too?!? drop me an email jason [at] publictivity.com .

meat-eater• 18 years ago

flickr is nice. Got me into whole social media thing. Gmail is also very nice.

tx• 18 years ago

Picasa (desktop version) and vim. Mac OS X "Settings" dialog (among others) with real-time feedback.

Nothing on the web comes close to a decent desktop/console speed and usability yet: most of it is slow, laggy and the keyboard is nearly useless. gMail is a good exception.

xenoterracide• 18 years ago

meebo

kevinl• 18 years ago

desktop: office 2007, web: gmail, server: command line

edu• 18 years ago

I love the iPod UI/UX. For mobile phones Nokia is the best I've tried (I've not tried the iPhone). Dead-tree books. Analogic watches/clocks. Gmail. Emacs. Quicksilver. A heavy metal concert. Amazon.

Ask YC: Which companies/products have the best UI/UX?

Related Stories