Being a regular user of StackOverflow, I was constantly being haunted by some of the small design issues in the website. Look at the screenshot below (click to enlarge):
I have this problem that I get really confused when visiting websites with a lot of stuff. Even though I have been to StackOverflow a zillion times, I still get distracted by the colors used in the website. (Of course these things are really subjective). I downloaded the style sheet and edited it. Here is how the site looks now (for me):
Here are some of the changes:
- Removed the background colors for the statistics (view count, points etc)
- Reduced the font size of the stats thereby making them less noticeable.
- Round cornered some tabs, tags etc.
- Removed the points displayed near the users name. This is not very useful and removing it cleaned up lot of clutter.
I am thinking of making some more modifications including stacking up the stats one over the other and making the tags for each question less intrusive. We can do away with a lot of stats in the page since most of the users are not very much interested in those minute details.
You can download the Greasemonkey script for this theme here.
Yes, the Stack Overflow site (and the others from the trilogy) really lack in the design department. It’s pretty much a programmer UI. And we all know that programmers suck at putting the polish on a UI. The design isn’t all bad, it’s clean and not cluttered too much, but those green and red background really steal the focus.
Super User is the worst, but luckily I don’t use it much.
Yes.
I thought the background highlighting was for the experts to quickly notice an unanswered question and scrutinize it.
There are two kinds of primary users, one which asks and the other that answers. And the stats really saves a lot of time in whether to open or not a thread.
Jus my two cents!
Wow Niyaz I admire your ability to not have configured many “ignored” tags; I’ve configured at least 50
silky,
I sure will, someday.
Niyaz, I do prefer your style. Fancy sharing the CSS?
BTW, have you ever read Tufte? Because you do are demonstrating his principles quite nicely!
Phil,
Get it from here: http://userscripts.org./scripts/show/65674
Niyaz,
You should put in an auto updating mechanism for your script. Otherwise it will be difficult for your users get your change, which IMO will happen everynow and then.
Get it here at http://userscripts.org./scripts/show/52251. To see how its used,take a look at my script @ http://userscripts.org./scripts/review/62104