You might have noticed the new look on USV.com today. We just pushed an update to make our feed more comfortable to read and interact with. I love the idea of websites and apps being comfortable, a term I picked up from Jared Sinclair’s post on designing the Unread app (iOS only).
Comfortable means always knowing where you are. It means not worrying about making a mistake. It means information has an obvious visual hierarchy: bold titles, tidy paragraphs, and spacious margins. Comfortable means there’s not visual clutter to distract you, except for those items that are supposed to stand out, like buttons.
The update we pushed on January 1 introduced a few things on the front and back ends of this site. Nick’s post about the update describe the primary goal we set out when planning the update: To give the most interesting posts and discussions on USV.com more time in the sun so that we could be sure everyone on USV.com was seeing really great stuff.
As Fred wrote in his post on AVC: “I encouraged them to launch it and fix the inevitable bugs in public.” That’s what we’re doing with today’s refresh. We’ve simplified the feed. We’ve also rejiggered the form for posting new stuff: now you can now just start typing a thought and then add a title or link later, if you want.
All in all this update to USV.com might just be a new coat of paint, but it feels more comfortable to us. We hope it does for you too.
If you’ve got thoughts or comments about the latest update, you know where to find us. And while we keep you waiting for the cool new feature we’re adding in the next week or two, here’s a great Tom Waits song of the same name as this post. Because Tom Waits.