On Design

Hi, this site is currently undergoing some maintenance. I don’t think this should matter to the average viewer (indeed, for reasons I’ll get into, a lot of these changes are supposed to be intuitive and invisible), but I want to explain my changes no matter what.

For starters, I want this site to adhere to a few core principles:

• Content First
• Respect the User’s Attention
• Adhere to a Minimal Aesthetic Style

Respect the User

This site is a place for me to post my work and post my thoughts, put simply. As such, it does not have the same design philosophy or considerations of a social media site, like Instagram, TikTok, or Youtube. If I can speak somewhat hyperbolically, these sites do not respect you. They operate under the assumption that you as well do not respect the site. At any moment, and for any infinitesimal reason, you may get bored and click onto the next shiny thing, even if the thing before was crafted with intent and purpose. These sites assume that your attention is like that of an animal, and that your navigation thereof is primarily driven by impulse. Because of this, everything is designed to absorb that “non-thinking” attention. Content is fast, fluid, catchy. It plays popular songs, people are expressive, they talk fast, they do wacky things. It is like you’re a toddler that the screen in front of you is trying to get to smile.

There is another type of content though. Intentional Content. Intentional Content assumes that the consumer/reader is there because they want to be. It doesn’t have to worry about losing your attention (to a reasonable degree), and so it can afford to drag on, to explain in depth, to build up exposition. The payoff of these types of content is usually more verbose, more intricate. Any book, TV show, Movie (well, maybe not anymore sadly), Textbook, or Lecture would probably fit into this category.

Content First

What I am saying isn’t exactly new information. It is distressing, in my opinion, but we’re in a distressing age with a lot of moving parts. And if you look at raw engagement and economic output, its clear that short form non-intentional content isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Nevertheless, my core philosophy behind this page is that whoever is here is here because they want to be. Ideally, I will do things with my life that give me some sort of valid authority over certain topics and perspectives, and people will read the stuff I write based on its merit. Then I can afford to display my content simply for what it is.

This is a two way street. It is an implicit agreement between the consumer and me. The reader agrees to visit and view my content based on its merit, based on actual decision, not simple impulse due to me flashing lights on the screen or popping up an email list in your face (this line will be funny if I ever do make an email list). My end of the deal is to produce valuable content that can afford to stand on its own merit, and to display that content simply.

Adhere to a Minimum Aesthetic Style

I would like to warn anyone who likes design or wants to get involved in it, that design is a sink hole in the most absolute sense of the word. I have spent hours upon hours deciding over what fonts to use, (Should I use mono fonts or not? Should this text be a higher or lower point?), how headers should be bolded, if the background should be a dark grey or a stark black. A lot of it is truly pointless, and if the content is truly as important as it is, people will not care about how it is displayed when reading it. If you want proof, just look at Paul Graham’s website. It’s ugly, it’s simple, it’s perfect. And you want to know why people still go to his site and read his essays? It’s because he’s fucking Paul Graham. But he had to earn his authority beforehand, recognition doesn’t come free.

And I am mature enough to say that I simply like to think about design. I think good design and good content go hand in hand. It is an odd relationship they have, because you can definitely make something look beautiful and still end up with something lacking substance. A gold plated pile of shit, as they say, is still a pile of shit.

And you can also create something great that feels inelegant. But in general, I believe that something that is good, performs well, or converges on a quintessential design tends to be beautiful and pleasing nevertheless. I hope to exemplify that with this site.

For one, the site is lightweight and simple. It is static, there are no comments, very little javascript, not much css. You can read and access the whole site on a screen reader, it performs well on google lighthouse metrics. The navigation is simple and accessible. There is a home button, just a few central categories (writings, projects, notes), and the information offered for each document is very simple. You are given the Title, The Date of Creation, and a Tag or two telling you roughly what you’re getting into.

For writing, there is an estimated time to read, maybe a table of contents for accessibility, but besides that there is just the content. The formatting is also simple, adhering mostly to markdown rules.

Even the links are meant to be beautiful. You have the base page, then the category pages (writings, notes, etc), which link to their archive pages. From here, you have the names of the page that is “sluggified” in the url. It is all, succinct. And as I said at the start, it is all hopefully intuitive. The design shouldn’t be apparent. It should complement and ease the consumption. It’s like ceramic tableware over plastic, or a cotton shirt over nylon.

Anyways, I hope this explains some of my considerations into the site, at least at this moment. I am sure it will evolve over time.