I wanted to create a design that I could use, so instead of pie-in-the-sky, I modified the CSS as suggested by the 'A Better HN: Aligned' post using Stylebot (awesome tool!). While its just a visual skin and not a complete UX overhaul at least its functional and useful right now.<p>Screenshot: http://cl.ly/1E182J1r0V040M3H302J<p>CSS: http://pastebin.com/JHEUQjcq<p>My concern with the previous designs I saw on HN were they weren't too readable.<p>In my design, I am giving prominence to the article title - bold and contrasty.
The comments is what I personally like to see next and I went with a subdued orange/brown for these links.
I increased the line-spacing and generally have a bit more white-space without overdoing it (you see about 15 of 30 articles above the fold on a 13" MBP).
Additionally, I removed any distracting elements (such as the header or orange lines) except for the Y-Combinator logo.
I have a userscript and zoom (twice) in Chrome to get the text larger. I like being inspired and made happy when I read through the titles, and I like Feedly's UI, so I made my version of HackerNews look exactly the same.<p>Some days, I just love being a programmer/designer. So much independence and control.