Tip of the Hat: Reddit
The main problem with good UI design is that it’s transparent. People don’t notice the good stuff—they just focus on the thirty things that are broken.
So a tip of the hat to a smart UI design that I just noticed on reddit. When you’re logged in and have javascript enabled, reddit tracks all the sites you click-through to. Yes yes, evil tracking, spyware, etc.
But what’s rather charming is that when you view reddit, the links you’ve already visited are displayed in purple. You know, that webbrowser standard for a followed link. Even if you’re on a different PC. It’s such a nice touch—Links that I viewed at home this morning are purpled-out when I’m at my desk at work. And I didn’t have to learn anything—it so snuggly fitted my mental model for How The Web Works that it took me a few weeks to notice.
Compare that to digg where even on the same PC, I can’t eyeball the page and see new links.
Nice work, reddit-folk!
On Friday, March 24, 2006, Alexis commented:
Thank you, thank you. Let me return your tip of the hat, good sir, with a gracious nod.<br>
Seriously though, we appreciate it. We just try to keep as little between the user and the content as possible -- glad to see that it seems to be working.