The best apps do one thing and do it well. 

Users submit links to stories, and stories are ranked according to a voting system.

While you can vote stories up, you cannot vote stories down, but you can flag stories.

100 upvotes will get a story to the top of the front page of the site. 

You can only downvote a comment if you have enough “karma” on the site. 

The Karma factor is determined by the number of upvotes on a user’s submission and comments minus the number of downvotes.

Many users dip in and scan a page or two and then walk away for a while. Others go there for the comments and not for the actual linked articles.

The Goal

LinkDap is a social news site run by the community. It provides links to news articles and blog posts that are related to technology, culture, and other areas of interest.

These two metrics define user engagement on the site: 

1. Articles Clicks Per Session: As a news site, the primary goal of Hacker News is to get users to click on links on the homepage that have been submitted by the community.

2. Time Spent On Site: As clicking links takes users away from Hacker News, this metric is mostly focused on the time users spend discussing the posted content.

Discovery: Users of LinkDap help organize the platform and categorize its search function, as well as generate more content. 

The content itself improves as more users “dap” the content, enabling discovery for others.

Feature Considerations:

• Front Page:
  • A filter of the most recent, top-voted content
• Search bar:
  • Top of the page
• Pagination:
  • No pagination, only a “More” button
• Item Grouping:
  • Items of different functions should be separated

“Hacker News” Use Case

Discovering Content

The primary use is as a link-aggregator site, discovering new and interesting content. By default, the 20 most popular links are displayed on the home page. Most links take the users away from LinkDap to other websites. 

• Discovery should be intuitive.

• Content should be consolidated, yet spacious, offering clear readability. 

• The top navigation links to other views such as ‘New’, ‘Show’, or ‘Ask’ posts. These links are styled in a way they stand out. A search box sits at the top of the page to make searching for posts easy.

• Similar links should group together. 

• Users can favorite or tag various data attributes, which would also allow users to have interesting posts automatically highlighted, so they are more visible amongst other posts. 

Discussion

The next use case for LinkDap is discussion, or the general community section. Individual posts can be commented and voted on. 

• The comment and point count is displayed underneath the post title, with other metadata. 

• Separate the metadata and introduce related iconography to make information instantly useful. 

• While the default view shows the most popular posts, highlighting ‘hot’ or ‘rising’ posts with a lot of points or comment activity will allow users to more easily find the posts which are driving the most discussion so they can get involved.

Sharing Content

• LinkDap does not exist without people sharing content for the rest of the community. 

• Users can click a link in the top navigation to submit links, show off their work, or ask questions to the community at large. 

• Users should be encouraged to find where to submit content and easily do so. 

• The link to submit content should be distinguished from other styled links in the top navigation.  

• Style the “submit” button so it is prominent in the top navigation. 

Improving Discovery and Sharing

Using a two-part header allows pre-existing elements of the top navigation to be given less visual priority. This allows focus to be drawn to the areas that promote either discovering content, or sharing content. 

• The logo mark and site name are shifted upwards. This allows more space for higher priority content, without sacrificing brand recognition.

• As the primary use case is discovery and digestion of content, the links which promote this should be given highest visual priority. 

• Search is also placed at the top. 

• Profile, Threads, and Logout are tidied away into a single drop-down menu.

• The link to submit is given high visibility. As a button, it highlights as a call to action.

Improving Discovery and Discussions

Ensure readability makes discovering and digesting content easy. Also improve the usefulness of iconography on the page to deliver useful information about post content. 

• Based on user preferences, users can see other favorite users, topics, or domains of interest; so whenever a post matches one of these, it’s highlighted. 

• Users who wish to see newer or ‘rising’ content will have an option in their profile to see new or rising posts mixed into the front page. This is potentially useful for people who wish to see a more varied mix of content on the front page, without having to switch views. 

• Moving the vote and comment icons to the site makes the post title more readable, while making the information from the icons more visible. The page color is used sparingly as an accent color. Posts that the user has upvoted or commented on will have an orange icon.

• Posts that are driving discussion receive a different icon, to make them easily identifiable. It’s not just an indicator that a post has a lot of comments, but that the post is currently experiencing a lot of activity, which may drive more users to visit this post and join this discussion.  

Other Considerations 

Some interesting issues outside the scope of only redesigning the homepage. 

Curated Content

Rather than visit the website, some users may prefer a curated summary via email, in the form of a newsletter or digest service. 

This is most likely because content is tagged, filtered, and curated for you, so while you’re still receiving the most popular content on Hacker News, it is more relevant to the users personal interest.

Allowing users to curate their own feed, as Reddit does, could counteract this trend of not visiting the site directly. 

Job Postings

Link to jobs in the top navigation is extremely important to the Link Dap experience, as it offers prime advertising space to new and upcoming LinkDap users and sponsors. 

Job posts can appear in the main feed of the site; anywhere in the top navigation, or perhaps a sidebar in unused space.

Summary

• Separating the post meta and improving the iconography makes more information visible at a glance, while making it easier to find posts that are ‘rising’ or ‘hot’. 

• Allowing users to highlight various data attributes also makes it easier for users to quickly recognize interesting content.